Hetanatural High (Working Title)
by L'Angleterre
Summary: New story, old faces. When resident merman Alfred F. Jones is scouted for Hetanatural High, he and his brother make their way to the school, where they meet some pretty weird people. Like that albino werewolf and his pack, or the three creepy necromancers who meet in the basement classroom at midnight. Or the Hungarian banshee with the frying pan... Gakuen APH Hetalia AU.
1. American Merman: Alfred F Jones

Synopsis: Alfred and Matthew are just two not quite normal teenagers trying to live their lives (and afterlives) in peace. When they receive a mysterious letter, they decide to check it out, but they encounter far more trouble than they bargained for.

Alfred's POV

Mattie seems to have a habit of disappearing.

Being a ghost might have something to do with it, but searching around the house and screaming 'pancakes' was apparently not going to help. I flipped a few of the American flag pillows off the couch, as if he might be hiding underneath one of them. Mattie, being a merman, died of asphyxiation, which is considered totally normal for us. What wasn't quite so normal was when he returned as a slightly purple ghost.

"Alfred..."

"GHOST! Oh God..." Matthew was standing (drifting?) just behind me as he tapped his foot impatiently in the air while attempting to look angry.

"There's a letter here, eh? It's addressed to us both." It still weirded Alfred out that Mattie could occasionally make himself known and be able to touch things; him being a ghost was a rather new thing to them both.

"Let's see this letter then bro!"

Dear Mr. Jones and Mr. Williams,

It has come to our attention that you aren't quite human. Please do not be alarmed, we have no intentions of hurting you! Quite the opposite in fact, we wish to invite you to attend our school, Hetanatural High, a safe haven for those like you, and those who aren't quite like you! We would appreciate a reply, whether positive or negative, so please don't hesitate to contact us!

Headmaster Romulus Vargas

The writing style was like that of an over excited ten year old, with lots of exclamation marks all over the place. Following the signature was the address of some place I'd never heard of. After holding it out for Mattie to read to save him wasting energy, my brother paused.

"Do you think it's a trap?" Wow. No beating around the bush from Matthew.

"I dunno dude. I'll Google this place!" Despite Mattie's protests that it was secret, so wouldn't be on Google, I drew out our beaten up laptop and booted it up. Several minutes and cusses later, I finally got the damn thing working. Hetanatural High, I thought. Why does that sound so familiar? I chewed on a pencil while I thought; no point wasting printer ink if I can write this stuff down!

"Nothing!" I wailed to Mattie, or maybe thin air- he had a habit of leaving at times like this- "there was nothing! Jeez Mattie, there's a whole crap load of stuff on the Illuminati and the CIA, but nothing on some high school for freaky dweebs like you?" It did seem as though my brother had left the room, as he returned with some maple syrup, sighing.

"Alfred, I could probably hear you from the other side of Wyoming. Go have a bath or something, you're probably dehydrated and stressed." I hated to admit it, but he was probably right. It had been a while since I last had a bath, and even longer since I'd been for a proper swim in the sea, but there was a reason we lived in Michigan, and that was because of those God damn awesome lakes! I hurried out of the room and grabbed my awesome red towel and ran the bath, being careful not to touch any of the water. The only problem with being a merman was that even a little water could set you off if you're not careful. The pros were seriously worth it though.

I was happily splashing around in the massive tub when Mattie burst in. Now, he may be my brother and I may be sort of chill about him seeing my merjunk, but he didn't even knock!

"What the hell dude?" I half yelled.

"The school. The place. Uptown. The return address, I wondered why it seemed familiar!"

"Mattie, you're not making sense. Chill out bro." He took a few deep, ironic breaths, until he was calm enough to form a coherent sentence.

"The address on the letter. It's the address of the Kirkland's bookstore down the road!" I sat up, alarmed.

"Kirkland? Like the pale, British kid who went missing in the seventh grade? Awesome bassist?" Mattie nodded solemnly, before his eyes widened.

"What if that's where he got taken?" We yelled at the exact same time.

We were creeping around outside Kirkland Books, like the pair of awesome heroic creeps we were. We weren't sure whether this was the best idea, and I had to come close to dragging Mattie along with me, not that it would've helped very much. The shop was old, for sure, with a dark wooden façade and a layer of dust on the glass windows.

"Should we go in?" Mattie whispered. Or said. I raised a hand and held up three fingers. Two. One. We fell into the building and I started sneezing almost immediately. This is why I prefer using Kindles, I thought darkly as I surveyed the shop. It didn't even seem like it had been used in quite some time, yet the door was unlocked.

"Mattie, we need to get out-" Oh damn, was that chloroform? I heard Matthew yelling my name, but I blacked out before I could even comprehend what was happening.

When I woke up again, I had a monster headache and no idea where I was, or what had happened. Tentatively, I probed the back of my head and flinched as I poked a large lump. I looked around us and it seemed as though we were on an aircraft of some sort. There were a lot of seats, but only one other was occupied besides my own.

"Mattie!" I stumbled over, "Mattie, you wake your ghostly Canadian butt up right now or I'll-" my head hurt too much to come up with a half decent threat, but Mattie was waking up, so I could play it cool.

"What's happening?" He asked, his Canadian accent becoming more defined in his sleepy haze. Wait, do ghosts even need to sleep? This was just getting weird.

"I don't know! I don't even remember what happened or why we're here but you were conscious and you're a ghost so is that even possible and what if-"

"Calm down, eh? Al, you need to relax." We seemed to be going through a déjà vu moment, when there was some kind of turbulence. By turbulence, I mean the whole freaking plane did a 360. I fell with a manly yelp and Mattie snickered from his levitating position in the chair.

"How the fuck do I calm down when whoever's driving this thing is a lunatic?" I wailed. There was a crackling noise coming from one of the speakers and a calm, British voice came through.

"I'm terribly sorry about that gentlemen, my copilot decided he was going to try and win a bet-"

"And I won it! You owe me a hundred and fifty kro-" a thickly accented voice cut him off, but started howling mid sentence.

"As I was saying, we should be arriving very soon. We apologise for the delay." Said the clipped British voice. By the sounds of it, the pilot had maimed the copilot after an attempted hijacking.

There was a confused silence, until I broke it.

"They sounded a bit young to be flying something like this." I muttered. I wasn't sure if the pair in the cockpit could hear us, but I damn well wasn't going to let them hear us easily.

"Well, we can't do much about this now, eh? Just get some sleep. I feel like you're going to need it." I didn't argue with his logic. After all, I was shattered and this headache was worse than having a hangover, so I slid into the plush black seat and fell asleep.

I woke up, confused yet again. I was in a dimly lit room and the sound of a heated argument could be heard from down the hall. One voice was French, the other sounded like the pilot from the journey here. Then, Alfred jolted back into reality.

"Mattie? Mattie, where are you?"

Well well well! Welcome to my new story! I have no idea where my other stories are going, but this one fell quite neatly into this. I have each chapter planned out too, so yeah. I hope you enjoy this, I think it's going to be fun to write, and I'm sorry about my other stories. I'm trying to get past this block I'm having but no such luck with that.

Is it sad that Michigan was the only state that I could name and luckily is basically Atlantis?

So yes, do enjoy this story, it's a Gakuen AU with a slight twist and pairings including but not limited to GerIta, Spamano and some other super secret ones for later on! For now, Hasta la pasta~!


	2. Dude, That's my Brother!

Synopsis: Alfred has been separated from his brother, but has met a surprising face from the past: Arthur Kirkland. Arthur and Lukas explain that they're on the Faroe Islands and that they'll be taking Alfred to his first lesson, which is... Anatomy?

Alfred's POV

I was panicking. Where was Mattie? Why wasn't he replying? Where was I? I fell off the bed and wound up tangled in a cable for the light. The noise stopped the arguing outside, and I heard footsteps approaching the room. Oh god, this is where I get cut up and drugged and eaten. I thought back to the horror movies that I watch and tried to formulate an escape plan. No way was the hero going to get turned into sushi!

"Alfred?" The Brit asked.

"How do you know my name?" I tried to sound calm, or tough, but it turned into a squeak at the end of my sentence. There was a quiet laugh from the door, and he came in, closing the door behind him. I battled with the cable for the light and eventually got it on, where I saw a pair of luminescent green eyes, and some pretty freaky eyebrows.

"It's me. Arthur Kirkland."

"The awesome bassist?" I asked weakly.

"The one and only."

"So where exactly are we Arthur Kirkland, awesome bassist?"

"The Faroe Islands." Was his only explanation. They had wandered down at least eight corridors and gone through six different doors, but every hallway looked the same to me! They were all long with wood paneling and lights embedded into the floor along the edges.

"Where exactly are the Faroe Islands?" Arthur didn't really reply, just waved a hand around in the air. We went through another door and were greeted by a blonde boy straddling another blonde and strangling him with his own tie.

"Lukas, there's no need to strangle Mathias, we have better things to do." Arthur scolded. The boy I guessed was Lukas released the tie, looking somewhat reluctant to do so, and the boy with spiky hair sucked in a deep breath.

"It's not like he could die from it." Arthur just rolled his eyes, before there was a terse silence. Lukas and Arthur had their eyes locked on each other and it was seriously freaky.

"Uh, dude? What're they doing?" I asked Mathias.

"Oh, they're trying to attack each other's minds. Give them a moment." It seemed a lot like they were eye raping each other, but their creepy eye contact thing ended shortly after with Lukas sighing.

"You win." I was beginning to think that Arthur had grown up to be a cocky jerk, but then his mindset flipped!

"Mathias, you should stop provoking Lukas and go to the medical room to get that looked at. Lukas, you need to strengthen your mental fortitude. It's best if you practice every evening, to protect yourself." Confused, I followed Arthur and Lukas through way too many doors again, until they stopped outside one.

"Your room." Lukas said.

"Your timetable is on your desk, but we'll take you to your first lesson, then show you around."

"Anatomy?"

"Anatomy." Lukas confirmed.

"What sort of school teaches Anatomy as a full subject?" I asked. Lukas shrugged as they trailed behind Arthur, who's role as Student Council President seemed to grant him a thin strip of clearance in the hallway.

"They probably think he'd hex them if they didn't move." I thought I could detect a hint of a smile on Lukas' expression, but it melted back into his impassive mask before any conclusions could be made.

"Welcome to G12, the Anatomy Lab." Arthur announced grandly. We seemed to be early, because the only people in the room were two girls, one brunette and one blonde.

"Arthur, Lukas." The brunette grinned at them. I realised in confusion that she wore the boy's uniform. I shrugged it off.

"Good morning Liza," Arthur's tone snapped to warm, "good morning to you too Emma." The Belgian shot the three of them a small smile before looking back down at her book, eyebrows furrowed.

"It's safer not to talk to her too much," Lukas told me, "her brother keeps tabs on her." I didn't even want to ask what that meant, so I sat in a gap that wasn't really there between Arthur and Lukas. Lukas didn't seem too impressed, but Arthur didn't seem to mind.

"If someone has a sibling, it's just safer not to approach them unless you know their older siblings." Arthur explained. That seemed pretty weird to me, but what wasn't weird about this place?

Somewhat on cue, a boy who looked about eighteen came in and sat beside her. He had gravity defying blonde hair, or maybe it was just excessive hair gel? He glared at Alfred and his glare only softened marginally as he nodded to Arthur and Lukas.

"That's Mogens. Don't piss him off Alfred." Lukas said.

"Uh, dudes, quick question?" I said. Arthur looked at me questioningly, "Well, we're definitely not all the same age, so why are we all in the same class?" Lukas gave me a look that I couldn't read and Arthur sighed in a really exaggerated fashion.

"The classes are small. Half of the pupils take night lessons too. Makes more sense to split us by species." He shrugged, before his eyes narrowed to slits and he glared at a point behind my head.

"PETER KIRKLAND YOU GET DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT!" Emma jumped a little. Mogens narrowed his eyes at Arthur. I screamed in a very manly fashion.

"Whatever jerk face!" Without warning, spells were whizzing around and I ended up screaming in a very manly fashion again as a jet of ice cold water bounced off a shield Arthur had put up and caught me on the back.

After that, all hell broke loose. The contact with the water caused me to transform past the scaled legs into full on freaking merman mode and Liza began screeching. I'd rather not cover the rest of the details because, well, it was rather emotionally scarring for me, but there was a frying pan involved and several hexes and I think I got taken to the medical room almost straight away because they couldn't deal with my awesome.

Upon waking up, I noticed three other occupants. One was Matthias from earlier who had been strangled by Lukas. He had a purple strip around his neck and a massive bruise on his chin. He grinned at me and I tried to grin back, but honestly, I was so tired. The second person in the room was the woman I assumed to be the school nurse. I only noticed the long blonde hair really, along with some quiet muttering. The third person was cast in the shadows of the room, and I only noticed him because he had red glowing eyes. Fucking red eyes.

"Hey there unawesome kid," he said with a grin as he leant out of the shadows. Silvery hair, tainted with red topped his head, but he looked like he'd been mauled by an animal. "My name is the awesome Gilbert Bei-"

"Gilbert, shut up." Said the nurse and holy crap she was not a she.

"Aw, but Vati-"

"Nein. And drink this." I was still recovering from the shock of finding that she-who-is-not-a-she is was in fact a he, when the door slammed open. I couldn't see very much from where I was, but there was wailing accompanied by the stench of burning hair.

"Fran got on the wrong side of Lovino again~!" The voice was definitely male, but the accent was weird, like everyone else's accent in this place.

"Mon Dieu my hair will never be the same!" The other, decidedly masculine, voice sobbed. Definitely French, I thought absentmindedly, Arthur hates the French. I finally caught sight of the pair and couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at them. The French one with the burns was slightly taller than the other, who was tanned with dark brown hair. The other thing I noticed was the glowing eyes again. The Frenchman had blue eyes and the tanned one had glowing Amber eyes.

"Why do your eyes glow?" I blurted out, causing the trio's conversation to cease.

"We're awesome!" The albino chortled.

"Sí!" Replied the one with brown hair.

"We are werewolves, mon ami. It is a simple trait and fact, non?" I wasn't sure if their laughing was meant to be teasing or not, so I just laughed with them.

"So who are you dudes?" The Frenchman flipped his newly grown back hair.

"I am Francis Bonnefoy, matchmaker extraordinaire!"

"I am ze awesome Gilbert Beilschmidt!" The albino declared with a breathy laugh afterwards.

"I'm Anotnio Fernandez - Carriedo!" The tanned one said with a laugh, whipping a turtle from somewhere under Francis' bed.

"Cool!" I grinned at them, forgetting their names almost immediately, "so you're all werewolves?"

"Ja! We're actually an exclusive pack, danke." Gilbert said.

"A pack? The three of you?" I wasn't too sure on the sociopolitical rules of werewolves, but I was pretty sure three people didn't constitute as a pack.

"Well," the Frenchie said, "that's why we're the Bad Touch Trio!"

Okay, that happened. I'm sorry it's late and I've just spent three hours at judo so this kind of went from weird to dodgy. Yes Antonio can whip a turtle out from anywhere he goes, no illusions! Tickets at the box office. Jesus you can tell it's late. I think I'll go to sleep now, thanks for reading, night night!


	3. Good Luck Francis

Synopsis: Alfred has just met the BTT, a werewolf pack consisting of Gilbert Beilschmidt, Francis Bonnefoy and Antonio Fernandez- Carriedo. He also learns of the high tension relationship between these three and Arthur, Lukas and Vladmir, the three warlocks and on-the-side necromancers. Alfred and Matthew soon find themselves caught in the middle of a turf war between the trios!

Alfred's POV

"YOU FUCKING TOSSER YOU TAKE THAT BACK!" I dove under a table in the Canteen as a curse flew overhead. Arthur was in a particularly nasty mood today; that particular curse had some pretty strong... Laxative effects. Mattie and I - when did he get there?- huddled under the table as an all out war began.

"When the hell did this happen?" I whisper shouted to Mattie. He shrugged.

"I blame you Al." We both jumped as a feral growl rattled the glass in the windows.

"Shit's getting serious!"

"Shut up Al!"

This had all started after I met the BTT pack. I had returned to Anatomy just before the end of the lesson to find that Arthur had vanished.

"He went to discuss something with the headmaster. Council things." The bored Norwegian stated, handing me a bundle of notes written in elegant script.

"Thanks dude! Wait! Can you tell me where... History is? I have that next." Lukas paused, before nodding.

"It's on my way to Tactical Ed. anyway. Follow me." I sorely missed Arthur's magical ability to create a path as Lukas seemed to go through people. I ended up running into a small Italian who burst into tears, piss off some angry blonde guy by doing that and then, on top of all that, I lost Lukas.

"Ohonhonhon~" I raised an eyebrow, before whipping around to see-

"Francis! Oh man am I glad to see you!"

"What's wrong Américain?" His hair had, somehow, grown back to what I assumed was its normal state. It was just off his shoulders and had been tied back with a blue ribbon.

"I was on my way to History with Lukas, but I lost him!" Francis grimaced at the mention of the warlock for some reason.

"Well, you are in luck! I have Histoire now, so we can go together, hmm?" He may have been shorter than me but he had a pretty strong grip in my shoulder, as well as an inch or two on Artie and Lukas! He seemed to have a similar ability to Arthur in terms of hallways, and we arrived outside the History classroom in no time.

History was nearly as weird as Anatomy. The teacher- Mr. Ackerman- didn't seem to like children very much, and simply assigned a bunch of textbook questions as class work and homework, before leaving again.

"Américain, zhat means we can do what we want in ze lesson! We can do ze work as homework!" Everyone seemed to be following a similar example, turning around to chat to friends, with the exception of an Asian boy sitting a few seats away from me.

"Hey dude!" He looked up at me, startled.

"Hello." He said, pushing up his glasses. He pronounced his 'l's like 'r's!

"I'm Alfred F. Jones, the F stands for Freedom!" Well, ma always told me to go big or go home.

"I am Kiku Honda. I suppose you are new here?" I nodded enthusiastically. This guy seemed like a great person to be friends with! He began tapping his pencil on the desk.

"Hey, when does this lesson end?" Kiku looked at the clock and his eyes widened comically.

"I'm very sorry but I'm late for a meeting. The lesson finishes in about forty minutes." With that, a strange fog descended around us, masking Kiku from my view. As suddenly as it arrived, the fog lifted and there was a cat...?

"Don't mind Kiku! He's really cool and he gives me manga!" The boy from earlier, Peter, was in this lesson too. I noticed the alarming likeness he had with his older brother, namely the eyebrows.

"Where'd he go?"

"Some meeting for the Student Council. Jerk face Arthur goes to them too. Actually-" he turned to Francis, who was preoccupied with Antonio and a blonde guy with a white beret, "-shouldn't you be at that meeting Francis? And you Vash?" The blonde boy, Vash, glared at us both.

"I was told I didn't need to be there. Your brother seems to enjoy working himself half to death." Francis nodded in agreement.

"Arthur will only let Kiku help him at this stage. Maybe when the workload increases, he will let the rest of the Council help..." With that they returned to their discussion about tomatoes and... Shotguns... I blinked a little as Vash's open hostility. Sure, a lot of the guys at this school seemed to have too much testosterone and not enough sport clubs to channel it, but Vash was the first person I'd seen who carried a weapon with him. It was a pretty sweet rifle and I was fairly certain I'd seen a flash of a knife. Note to self, don't piss of the Swiss.

When the lesson finally ended, it seemed that I had a half hour break before my next lesson, which was Computing, before lunch. Confident in my recollection of a computer suite I'd passed with Lukas, I went to the canteen to see if I could figure out where Arthur was.

"Watch where you're going, stupid American!" Oh no, no, no. Shittity shit, I pissed of the Swiss. His eyes were green like Arthur's; his rifle was the colour of Kiku's hair.

"That's an SIG SG 550 right? Swiss model. It's pretty sweet dude!" I babbled, trying as hard as I could to buy myself time. Goodbye, sweet world. I will miss you so.

"It is." His eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Alfred!" Oh thank God, it was Arthur!

"Hello Arthur." They nodded civilly and Vash departed from the conversation.

 _Thank you Arthur you literally just saved my life dude you're amazing thank you thank you thank you! Was what I wanted to say._

"Dude where did you go? You left me with Lukas who got me lost!"

"Oh I'm sorry that I can't be at your every beck and call. Unfortunately, I have responsibilities!" _No no that's not what I meant Arthur please-_

"I'll just go hang out with Gil and Francis then!" Arthur tensed up, before he seemed to force himself to relax.

"Go hang out with those wankers if you really want to, but they're a bad influence!" _Arthur please forgive me I can't go around the school on my own I barely know those guys I'm sorry I-_

"Whatever, mom." With that I was out of the conversation before I could make things any worse. When I made the mistake of looking back, I saw a pair of thick eyebrows furrowed over green eyes that were definitely not shimmering with tears. Maybe anger. Yeah...

"Mattie?!"

"Alfred! I've been so worried! They said I'd see you eventually but I wasn't sure and-"

"Ohonhonhon~ I didn't realise that the Américain was your brother Matthieu!" I peered over Matthew's shoulder to see none other than Francis and Gilbert. This was perfect! I could use Mattie's friendship with the BTT pack to get into their clique! I'm such a bad sibling...

"Kesesesese~ You're that kind of awesome guy from the medical room! Shouldn't you be hanging out with the unawesome president?"

"Arthur's just pissing me off really. Mind if I hang out with you guys?" Francis and Gil narrowed their eyes.

"Excuse us, hmm?" They whipped off and stood in a huddle, whispering furiously and shooting looks towards Mattie and I every now and then. Eventually, they resorted to Rock, Paper, Scissors, before Gilbert won.

"Awesome! You can both hang out with us!"

"Whoa Francis, you didn't want us to hang out with you?" I asked, feeling a little hurt. Francis groaned.

"It isn't that Américain, Gilbert hasn't finished." They blinked, looking to Gilbert, who was smirking evilly.

"We have a little job for you. Call it your induction..."

"Why the _maple_ are we doing this Alfred?" Mattie whisper shouted. It was almost pitch black outside and the hallways were almost silent, with the exception of a hyperactive Italian we could hear from a floor down. In Mattie's hand, was a list of names and room numbers. In my hands... A metal hair clip, along with the skeleton key. God knows how Antonio ended up with that; he was smarter than he got credit for.

"Look Mattie, there's no backing out know. We already have Lukas' 'fucking satanic hair clip thingy', I think this was the right one. Now to Vlad's room. We're supposed to take his 'top hat with the weird ass ribbon bow'. Gilbert's really specific, you know."

"There's no need to blame this on Gilbert, eh? It's your fault, you agreed to this!"

The 'top hat with the weird ass ribbon bow' was actually very easy to find. Well, the one that Gil had meant. It had been kept in an ornate hat box on Vlad's dresser, but it had taken a little searching because Vlad seemed to have hundreds of hats and waistcoats and trench coats and god knows what else, all arranged immaculately into a large wardrobe.

"He has a really clean room!" I was about to flop onto his bed and maybe take a power nap when I heard Mattie hiss.

"You dare sit on that bed I will _strangle_ you. You'll never wake up again and this will have been for nothing." When he turns into Tom Riddle, it's definitely time to get out of there. Mattie was left with custody of the hat as we looked at the final name and item on the list.

"Seriously? Arthur's 'guitar case, not the one with the guitar in, the one filled with crap'? This is just great!" They were just advancing towards room 104 when Mattie collided with someone.

"Che palle! Watch where you're-a going!" Said the angry Italian boy before storming off.

"He doesn't seem as happy as he did when we heard him earlier..." Mattie mused.

"Okay dudes, we got everything!" They had met with the other three at seven the next morning. It was a Saturday, so the three necromancers wouldn't be up until later. Besides the pair of them and the BTT, Vash, Elizabeta, Kiku and a brunette boy were the only other people awake and in the canteen.

"Gil can take ze guitar case, since he plays the guitar and it won't be as suspicious, hmm? I'll take ze 'air clip and Tonio can take the hat." The BTT bade them farewell and departed with their goodies.

"Was that really a good idea?" Eliza had come over without a sound and was standing behind them, a hand dangerously close to each of their necks, "Arthur's my friend, you see. While I don't give a damn about what happens to Vladimir," she spat his name, "I care about Arthur and Lukas. Was what you did really a good idea?"

"See? That's what I told you!" Alfred shuddered as he felt a cold hand on the back of his neck.

"Alfred F. Jones, tell me. Was that clever? Was it really smart to annoy the three people who could curse you into next week?"

"I could curse him too, you know. I'm just not the sort to resort to dark magic like that." I immediately formulated the image of a snooty foreign guy with glasses and a cravat and everything and, to be honest, I wasn't all that far off. It was a shame I missed the beauty mark off of my mental image but hey ho.

"This is Roderich, my boyfriend." Eliza introduced the man, who turned his nose up at us. Eliza gave us one last warning glare, before walking back to their table where the Asian guy was looking pretty uncomfortable. Vash simply glared around the room from his corner table, before pushing away and stalking off.

Mattie and I hung around in the canteen for quite a while. Being new, we had no idea where else to go and I was sort of panicky about getting lost again. About twenty minutes after they had left, the BTT came skidding into the hall and fell into three seats at a table where a blonde was sitting with the Italian from last night. Moments later, we realised why they were running.

"I am going to fucking kill all three of you." A sinister voice echoed around the canteen, accompanied by a sickly green glow.

"Not if I get there first!" A thickly accented voice cut in. I realised with a start that it was the same voice from on the plane, and the red glow seemed to point to it being Vlad. The whole room was silent now and the BTT looked to each other before they burst out laughing. Sadly, they weren't laughing for long. Gilbert was blasted out of his seat by a peculiar blue beam; Antonio was surrounded by a red glow before he was lifted into the air and tipped upside down, but Francis had it worst. Arthur clearly didn't get along well with Francis as his hair caught fire and burnt a majestic green.

"What the maple is happening Al?!" Mattie screeched, ish, as another curse whipped over our table. We needed a plan, and fast.

"Mattie, we need to do something. Come up with a plan!"

"What? Why me?! You can save your own star spangled ass I'm out of here!" Fast as light, or a Canadian ghost, Mattie was gone. I cursed- unfortunately not a magical curse, just a profane one- and crawled over to where Eliza and the snobby guy were huddled.

"Eliza, I fucked up. You were right, I was wrong. What do I do to fix it?" She made a 'tch' sound, a lot like Mr. Ackerman had, before gesturing for me to come closer.

"Here's the plan. Whenever this sort of thing happens, the Magic Trio hide in one of the bathrooms, usually the one on the third floor. There, they can use the mirrors to see the reflections off of the windows, so they can cast spells. You have to go up there, confess and throw yourself upon Arthur's mercy."

"Do you want me to die?!" I screamed. She shrugged.

"I don't really mind." With that, she shoved me out from their hiding place and I staggered out of the doors, Francis' screams echoing in my mind.

I couldn't help but compare the walk to the third floor bathroom with the final march to the gallows or something. I even considered going back, but the hero in me knew that that was weak!

"Guys I'm so sorry this is all my fault please stop hurting the others and please don't hurt me because I'm sorry I didn't know what else to do and-"

"Alfred, do shut up." I stopped abruptly and opened my eyes. I had to stifle a laugh. Lukas' hair was all over the place and Vlad had a green hat on that really didn't suit his outfit. My laughter died out as I took in Arthur's appearance. His eyes were heavily shadowed and bloodshot. He'd been crying?

"No I haven't you wanker!" Oh shit, I said that out loud.

"This is all my fault guys. I'll get your stuff back, but could you ever forgive me?" They shared a look and shrugged.

"That depends..."

You should all be very proud of me, this was 2,500 words, give or take and that's a new record for me, just saying. I hope you enjoyed this! For now, Hasta la Pasta~!


	4. Ivan Meets World

Synopsis: Alfred and Matthew have begun to settle in to the strange routine at Hetanatural High, but there is a new arrival to the school: Ivan Braginski, water elemental and downright scary. At least, Mattie finds him scary. The hero doesn't! Major filler, not going to lie.

Matthew's POV

My brother is a little insane, as you've seen by his antics so far. He charges head first into trouble without a care in the world. I love him, honestly, but sometimes he can be a bit much. I remember-

Alfred's POV

The awesome heroic me was determined to make Hetanatural High a better place for the weaklings! My first call of duty had been to make things right with the Magic Trio, which had been successfully done with a lot of tears, bribery and small stab wounds. The tears had worked on Arthur, who informed me that it was only because I reminded him of his little brother; bribery was successful on Vlad, who accepted the extra desserts he would be getting for the next three months quite happily. Lukas was the source of the stab wounds. I wound up being a test subject for a few ice spells he had been working on and it hurt, to put it simply.

"You look like shit."

"Gee thanks. Didn't realise." I dropped my tray with a clatter onto the table and sat down with a heavy sigh. Francis and Yao were too busy discussing the finer aspects of cooking that I didn't really understand, so I started a conversation with Arthur instead.

"Hey, there's a soccer team here, right?" Arthur's eyebrow twitched.

"Football."

"There's a football team too? Awesome!" Arthur was slowly descending into his rage, until he brightened up and started talking to himself.

"Uh, Francis? What's he doing?"

"Talking to his invisible friends." Alfred stared blankly at him.

"What? I don't see anything."

"Well, they are invisible." Mattie and I tried very hard to ignore him. Very, very hard. However, as soon as 'murder' and 'parties' were introduced in the same sentence, I couldn't just sit and listen.

"Look Arthur, I want to try out for the Soccer Team."

"What?!" He half-yelled. He looked around embarrassedly at the curious stares he got. "Listen, you can't do that," he hissed, "it's a really bad idea." I really didn't want to get into another argument with Arthur, especially after the whole pizazz with Francis' hair. It still hadn't grown back properly and had an odd green tinge to it. I didn't have the heart to point it out to him.

I was still curious as to why I couldn't try out for the soccer team, so I asked Eliza and Gilbert.

"Kesesese~! Isn't it obvious? Eyebrows is on the football team!" That hurt a little. Arthur didn't want to hang out with me? Was that it? Gil went back to attempting to seduce Eliza, which was painful to watch, so I went up to my room. It was pretty spacious and I had it all to myself, which was awesome! I hadn't had much of a chance to decorate, but I'd put my American flag up over the top of my bed and the trash everywhere made it feel more like home.

I was still trying to figure out where all of my lessons were and what... Exactly... They were. Tactical? There were magic lessons? And what on earth was Department Nineteen? I sighed through my nose and took off my glasses, before throwing myself onto my bed and letting sleep consume me like I was a hamburger.

By the time I woke up, it was to the bell.

"Oh fuck! I'm late to... Something!" I grabbed my schedule and fled the room, trying to figure out where I was supposed to be, and for what. I burst through the doors of Tactical and collided with the idiot standing in the doorway. Unfortunately for me, that idiot was Yao.

"Westerners are so rude aru!"

"Da, I agree." Whoa. Back the star spangled all-American pick up truck up. Who was this guy? He was taller than me, the height difference between him and Yao was hilarious, to put it lightly. The next thing I noticed was the massive nose, and the third was his eyes, which were purple like Mattie's.

"As I introduced earlier," the teacher for this class, Mr Smith according to my schedule, sighed, "this is Ivan Braginski. He's new as of today, so be nice." Be nice? To a Commie? He had to be kidding! I sighed and tried to figure out the point of the lesson. There were climbing walls and tanks of water and beams everywhere. Apparently, this was like PE by the looks of things.

"Artie! You're in this lesson too, thank God!" I saw one of Arthur's majestic caterpillars twitch.

"My name is-"

"Feliciano! You're up first!" My eyes widened in surprise. It was the bipolar Italian kid! It was also the guy I ran into on my first day who had burst into tears when I ran into him. Feliciano took what looked like a grappling hook with a grin, before scurrying up one of the climbing walls with practiced ease.

"Oh my God what's he doing Art?" I whisper screamed. I very nearly did scream when he leapt off the top of the wall and swung like a pendulum across the vast room.

"Nice job, Feliciano, Lovino, you're up next!"

"Che palle, this is-a stupid." Wait... What? There were two Italians? Twins? So Lovino was the angry one and Feliciano was the excitable one. Lovino snatched the grappling hook from his brother's hands and clomped up to the climbing wall, eyeing it distastefully. His ascent was much less graceful and his pendulum-ing was even worse. His grip slipped on one of the beams and he went plummeting into a net.

"Nice try, Lovi~!" Antonio cooed. It wasn't malicious, as Alfred had expected, it was more-

"Jones! You're up!" I cringed as I took the grappling hook from Lovino (Well, he more threw it at me) and edged towards the wall. It was a lot higher than it looked, now that I was here. Chewing my lip, I scrambled for some handholds and heaved myself up. I could hear Lovino snickering from the ground and I used that to fuel myself to the top. Now I was here, it was all a case of physics. The angle from here to the next beam could be easily reached, but after-

Arthur's POV

"We don't have all day, Jones!" Mr Smith called. I could see Alfred floundering- excuse the pun- as he launched himself from the top beam and fired the grappling hook. I realised with a start that he was calculating up there. To many, it was impulse, to most, it was unnatural. Very few actually worked out the angles of trajectory. Could he clear it on the first go?

I realised quite promptly that no, he could not clear it on the first go as he went hurtling and screaming towards one of the thankfully uninhabited tanks of water-

"Oh fuck." I cursed to myself. He hit the water and immediately began to transform. It turned out that he was quite a pretty merman. His scales were red and blue, even if I winced internally at the colour scheme of freedom, but in the eyes of an art student, he was a beautiful subject. I could see Feli thinking much the same thing. His glasses had flown off somewhere along the way and it was revealed that he had gills. Gills.

"Kesesese~ He has gills Arthur. Like, Gill-Bert? You get it?" I left Gilbert to laugh at his own pun as I ran over to the tank.

"Alfred, are you... Hurt?" 'Okay' seemed like a cruel thing to say. Alfred shook his head in the negative and Mr Smith began the tedious process of draining the tank, before opening a small glass door and wading in to Alfred's rescue.

"I feel like a damsel in distress. This is totally unheroic." He muttered.

"Arthur, would you take him to the Medical Room? I still have a lesson to teach and you're fairly competent. Feliciano, would you go with him?" Carrying a very pissed off Alfred between us, we staggered down to the Medical Room once again.

Alfred's POV

"Mr Jones, you must like my company," Gil's dad-who-was-not-a-woman said exasperatedly. Admittedly, that was not my first time in here, not even that week. My first day had obviously been a catastrophe, but there hadn't been any other instances that week, besides accompanying Francis after the hair incident and occasionally asking for plasters after Lukas' experiments.

"In my defence, this is only my third time in here this week."

"Alfred, it's Wednesday." I heard Arthur snort and slapped him around the back of the head, good-naturedly, of course. As per usual, I wasn't the only person in there. There was a blonde boy, who almost looked like Francis from the back view I had. His hair wasn't nearly as wavy though, nor was it green tinted.

"Is that Feliks or Vash?" Arthur inquired, as if reading my mind. He and Feli dropped me onto a bed and I swear I saw Arthur wink at me. Could he really read my mind?

"Feliks. I wouldn't disturb him."

"That would be wise." I hadn't even realised, but Feli had vanished very quickly and very quietly from my side. Probably returning to class. It had only been a few minutes, but another figure burst through the doors, with a very tall shadow in tow.

"I'm very sorry but Mr Ivan had an accident!" The shorter boy stuttered, trying not to meet anyone's gaze.

"It's okay Ravis," Arthur said soothingly, "let's go back to class, hm?" He tugged the shaking boy back to class in a vice like grip, leaving me alone with Ivan, Feliks and the not-guy-Gil's-dad. Ivan smiled at me, but it seemed to drop the temperature of the room by a few degrees.

"Nice to meet you, comrade."

It had been one day. One day since I met that damn Russian. I didn't like him at all; he seemed so... Fake. His smile didn't reach his eyes. I voiced my distrust to Arthur, who simply snorted.

"Alfred, you just dislike him because he's Communist. That's not even a decent reason to dislike someone. After all, Yao is Communist but you get along perfectly fine with him."

"Américain, Arthur is right. You need to stop holding something like that over his head." Francis interjected. It wasn't until I was sat with Gil in Advanced Poisons that afternoon that I found someone who agreed with me.

"I used to go to school with him, I hated his Russian ass!" Gilbert spat, with an ironically poisonous tone. The teacher shushed us and we ducked down to look at our worksheets. Somehow, I'd made it into this class (probably thanks to chemistry, which had been my best subject back at my old school) and we both finished the sheet a little early. I tore a piece of paper out of my notebook with the intentions of writing a note to Gil, when I felt my phone vibrate in my shirt pocket.

 _To: HERO__

 _From: THE _AWESOME _GIL_

 _Kesesese~ This is how most people do it mister hero!_

 _To: THE_AWESOME_GIL_

 _From: HERO__

 _This is pretty cool! So tell me more about Ivan?_

 _To: HERO__

 _From: THE_AWESOME_GIL_

 _Yeah he has a couple of sisters and was pretty popular. Probs because everyone was scared of him LOOL_

 _You met Ravis? Kinda short, brownie?_

That threw me. I did remember Ravis, but I didn't get the significance of the brownie part. Why was Gil asking me about chocolate at-

 _To: HERO__

 _From: THE_AWESOME_GIL_

 _Brownie as in the CREATURE you unawesome American!_

 _To: THE_AWESOME_GIL_

 _FROM: HERO__

 _Hey! Yeah I know him. What is he one of Ivan's minions or something?_

The teacher announced that the time allotted for the worksheet was over, but there was a barely noticeable nod from Gilbert in my direction. He held up three fingers, before the teacher started lecturing again and we scrambled to take down notes. Three fingers... Three minions? Ravis was one, two to go...

I was about to send another message to Gil, when my phone vibrated.

 _From: CaptainKirkland_

 _To: HERO_ ; THE_AWESOME_GIL ; FryingPanFury ; Lovi-is-BAE_

 _You may wish to be a little more subtle if messaging in class, you four. - A.K._

Busted! I didn't know who the other two were, but there was a jingling from Eliza's direction as she put her hands in her blazer pockets, red faced. She must be FryingPanFury. Who was the other? Lovino wasn't even in that class, nor was his brother. How strange...

I was itching to know more about Ivan and his super secret weakness- every villain has one!- when I walked into a wall right outside of the lab. I heard the painstakingly familiar laughter of Gilbert and Antonio, accompanied by a snicker from Arthur. I shot a middle finger vaguely in their direction as I readjusted my glasses with my other hand. It looked like I had... Map work... Next. I'd never understand why the heck they made us take such dumb lessons, or where classroom M3 was, but I wandered around looking for it for a few minutes, until I got a message.

 _From: FryingPanFury_

 _To: HERO__

 _You might find the M Block if you head outside ;3_

There was a whole separate block... With a sigh that echoed around the empty hallways and a creepy realisation that Eliza must be around somewhere if she knew I was lost, I found a set of doors and headed outside, where I saw a building with the letter 'M' over the doors.

"Perhaps they should be a little clearer with their labelling." I growled. In an understandably foul mood, I found M3 five minutes late. Apparently though, that didn't seem to matter, as the class was in complete chaos. Feli was on one side of the classroom screaming and wrapped around Kiku, who looked incredibly uncomfortable; one guy was asleep while all of this was happening; Eliza was sitting texting, her feet in her boyfriend's lap while he was composing music and Lukas was near where I was standing, screamo bleeding from his earbuds. Asides from the few familiar faces, there were plenty of people arguing and shouting at each other or on their phones completely ignoring the world. I chose a seat next to a blonde guy with glasses, who was focused intently on his laptop.

"Wassup dude?" I said without much enthusiasm. It had been a long day. He barely looked up as he greeted me, his eyes locked on his screen. Trying not to seem like I was being nosey, which would have been totally unheroic, I peered over his shoulder to see a webpage filled with coding.

 _To: HERO__

 _From: NorwegianRidgeback872_

 _Stop prying, American._

Damnit Lukas. I shot him a glare, to which he didn't even have the decency to look surprised at. I stomped out of the classroom as the bell went, signalling the end of the day, in the worst mood I'd ever been in in my heroic life.

Fortunately for all, my bad mood had lifted by the next day. I mean hey, it was pizza today! Who could be in a bad mood when they were serving pizza? I raced down to the canteen only to find-

"Good morning! I trust you slept well, da?" Oh hell to the no. He... Was at _our_ table. This was so not cool!

 _From: BeauFrancis_

 _To: HERO_ ; CaptainKirkland_

 _Alfred, control your temper mon ami. Arthur, mon amour, please come and stop Alfred from punching Ivan, hmm?_

I heard an indecipherable string of curses come from the breakfast queue as Arthur came hurtling over with his trademark scowl and sat on the other side of Ivan. I shot him a grateful look for taking that seat as I sat between Arthur and Francis.

"You look stressed Anglais. What's wrong?"

"I can't find my bloody history homework."

"Probably because I have it dude!"

"Wanker! I turned my room upside down looking for that!" And thus, Ivan became an unquestioned presence in our group. That doesn't mean I liked him or anything though!

Ahh. That took a while. I'm sorry that this was a filler chapter and that it took so long to get out. Seeing as I forgot to mention it, I've basically stolen all of the teachers from Attack on Titan (the anime is pretty gory, they really aren't teachers). I also took the 'Tactical Ed.' lesson from HIVE by Mark Walden. They're seriously cool books. Anyway, that's all for now, I'll try to get the next chapter out soon! O-O


	5. So Random!

Synopsis: Kiku introduces Alfred to Feliciano and Lovino, a pair of elementals, who want to play a game with him called So Random, in which Alfred has to try and successfully guess the supernatural identities of several students at the academy, based on a series of seemingly random clues.

Alfred's POV

The awesome heroic me was determined to make Hetanatural High a better place for the weaklings! My first call of duty had been to make things right with the Magic Trio, which had been successfully done with a lot of tears, bribery and small stab wounds. The tears had worked on Arthur, who informed me that it was only because I reminded him of his little brother; bribery was successful on Vlad, who accepted the extra desserts he would be getting for the next three months quite happily. Lukas was the source of the stab wounds. I wound up being a test subject for a few ice spells he had been working on and it hurt, to put it simply. I'd just finished checking out some tomes of some sort for Lukas when-

"AND STAY AWAY FROM MY BROTHER YOU POTATO BASTARD!" Was the only warning I got before the heavy metal door of the library was slammed into my face. Being the hero I was, I totally didn't cry! Okay, maybe just a little. I vaguely recognised the voice which I believed belonged to Lovino, a fire elemental. It was honestly no surprise that he was so bad tempered, considering his element. I wasn't too sure who the 'potato bastard' was, but his brother would be Feliciano Vargas, an earth elemental.

"Ve~ I'm-a so sorry! I don't even know you!" Speak of the devil. Feliciano looked like he was about to cry and Lovino just looked pissed off, although his eyes held the hint of an apology.

"Che Palle! It's-a just the burger bastard fratello, don't look so-a worried."

"Whoa dude, you know who I am? That's so awesome!"

"So random..." The pair muttered under their breath.

"What?" They shook their heads and marched off, arm in arm. Feliciano tried to skip but that didn't really work out. I just shook my head, dazed, and decided it was probably time for bed.

At breakfast the next morning, I asked Kiku my super cool Japanese friend what the pair meant by 'so random'. It seemed pretty... Well, random, but it seemed significant to the twins. Perhaps my twindar was just spazzing out?

"It's a game they play. Try your best to avoid getting pulled into it. I'm sorry but I'm late for a meeting." Was the cryptic advice given by the shapeshifter, who promptly transformed into an owl and vanished through a window.

"A game huh?" I thought to myself, "sounds like trouble... Sounds fun!"

"Hey! Feli, Lovi! I can call you that, right?" Lovino immediately replied with a 'no' and a scowl, but Feli didn't seem to mind his new nickname.

"What do you want burger bastard? In case you hadn't noticed, we're a little busy!" Lovino snapped.

"Doing what?" They shared a look; it was a look I often shared with Mattie. It was the look of a conversation via eyes.

"Hiding. From-a people." Lovino eventually said.

"Like?" Lovi scowled at me and didn't reply, his eyes instead darting to a point just behind me.

"If you must-a know, it's those three werewolf bastards and that-a fucking banshee." He growled.

"That's so weird! I saw Francis earlier and he said he was looking for you!"

"So random..." They replied automatically.

"Hey, can I play So Random? Kiku told me about it!" The pair froze in their tracks and shot him a very strange look over their shoulders.

"You... Want to play?" They said in eerie synchronisation.

"Well, I did. I'm kinda creeped out now though dudes." They had another wordless conversation and, if my eyes weren't failing me, Lovino won.

"Sure thing burger bastard. Meet us in the cooking block at-a four."

"Ve~ Can you-a sign this birthday card for Lovino?" Feli asked hurriedly as his brother walked away. Quick as a flash, I had a pen out and signed it. I waved goodbye to them, before realising that I had no freaking clue where the cooking block was, or where I was now, or even what the time was.

"They have a whole damn block just for cooking things? Jeez this place is weird." I was totally paying attention to where I was going, but I walked straight into someone with a yelp.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" The boy said, quite loudly. I noted the earbuds. His violet eyes reminded me a lot of Mattie's when he was alive. The tall guy looming over him from behind was a little less comforting, especially as he had glowing teal eyes.

"S'okay dude, it was my fault anyway. Who're you? I'm new."

"Oh! I thought you looked unfamiliar. I'm Tino and this is Berwald." The guy behind him nodded, once, in my direction.

"W'tch wh're you're g'ng." He mumbled and, with that, they vanished off through one of the doors.

"How does anyone know where the hell they're going in this place...?" I muttered.

"Are you like, lost or something?" An unfamiliar voice called. I spun around to see a blonde girl, who had an eerie resemblance to Vash.

"I'm Feliks, by the way. Like, what're you doing?"

"Alfred, and I'm looking for the cooking block." She shot an amused look to me.

"I was watching you, you know. You do know that you're like, in the wrong building?" At that moment, I completely ignored the first part of her sentence, about her watching me, and focussed on the whole wrong building thing.

"Damn! Hey can you tell me where the cooking block or whatever is then?" I asked, putting on the puppy dog eyes.

"Sure thing!" She twirled around and started walking very quickly in the opposite direction, leaving me running along behind her. "You know," she called over her shoulder, "it's not called the cooking block, it's the Fine Arts block but like, the twins seem to think it's their private kitchen or something." She flicked her hair a little as they burst out of the building into the sunlight.

"Feliks, Feliks dudette you're sparkling. Like Edward Cullen." I said while slapping her shoulder.

"Stephanie Meyer just like, butchered us in the media," Replied Feliks, a scowl flitting across her features, "but whatever. Fine Arts is through here," She said, pointing towards a squat glass building half obscured by the trees, "there were some major problems with the designing. 'Cause it's glass it started like, setting people on fire and stuff. I'm not really that great at Physics but even I could like, see that coming." My mind whizzed with possible reflective angles and total internal reflection between the two buildings.

Feliks led me through the building, which was now eerily silent. We reached a closed set of double doors, which had a sign on. 'CLOSED FOR SO RANDOM. ENTER AT OWN PERIL.' signed by the Vargas brothers with odd, dark red stains on it, which looked suspiciously like tomato ketchup. Or blood. You know.

"Do you want me to tell Arthur where you are?" Feliks asked, looking somewhat nervous.

"That'd be cool, thanks!" I replied with a grin. She nodded solemnly and patted me on the shoulder before leaving kinda fast. I flung the door open and the lights came on automatically, nearly making me scream. Taped to one of the blue plastic stools was a note with something scrawled onto it. Hesitantly, recalling the incident in Kirkland's Books, I edged towards it. Slam. I bit the inside of me cheek. That was a very stupid move on my part indeed. Whatever. I picked up the note.

'Burger Bastard,' it read in what I assumed to be Lovino's writing, but that was crossed out and above it was my name in Feliciano's neat script. Below that were the numbers one to eight, followed by a bunch of instructions.

"I have an hour? Piece of cake!" I grabbed a pen from my bag and took a look at the first question.

Half an hour later, I was still staring at the first question in a state of blank horror. This made no sense. I'd even signed it. 'Ve~ Can you -a sign this birthday card for Lovino?' With a small screech, I flicked through the document that I'd supposedly signed. I couldn't believe what I'd done. I scrabbled for the first page.

"Excalibur... Excalibur... Some kids story with a wizard and a king..." That was it! Okay, so it wasn't the first question but I had one of them now, right? I scrawled Arthur's name into the space next to question seven, before scanning through the rest.

I had written about three names down (Arthur's, which was Excalibur; Antonio's, which was tomato bastard and Berwald's, which was a Fall Out Boy title.) when the doors were slammed open, revealing Feliciano and Lovino.

"Looks like you-a lost burger bastard," Lovino said, attempting to look indifferent. It didn't work; he was grinning evilly. I'd read the contract that I'd accidentally signed and I realised in horror what would happen now.

"You're not going to..."

"Yeah we are." I was frogmarched out of the building just as Arthur ran towards us, clearly out of breath. I hadn't realised how dark it was getting; the sun was sinking low on the horizon.

"Alfred! Feliks told me that-"

"We aren't scared of you Eyebrows!" Lovino shouted from behind Feliciano, who was shivering. Maybe he was cold? "He still has to complete the forfeit, he signed!"

"I'm not saying that he doesn't. I just know that you're good friends with Oliver and..." He trailed off, shaking his head, "come on Alfred. Tea's almost over." Wait what? Tea? I hoped he meant dinner and not dirt water as I bounced along beside him to the canteen, where I was glad to see pizza and fizzy drinks on the menu. Only a few people were still in the room, including Roderich and Eliza, who appeared to be in a very heated argument; Lukas who glared at me in greeting and Vladimir, who had left his usual table in exchange for sitting with Lukas, as far away from the arguing couple as he could get.

"Dude," I said through a mouthful of pizza, "do you know what they're gonna make me do?" Arthur gave me a slightly disgusted glare.

"Well, if it's anything like what they planned to have me do, then I can imagine it's degrading, very public and without a doubt engineered by The Bad Touch Trio," He chewed thoughtfully on a chip, "I was very glad that I got out of doing it."

"Wait, what was your forfeit? How do you know it's the BTT? Wait, you didn't have to do it?" Arthur looked exasperated.

"One question at a time, good god Alfred. I know it's the BTT because I used to help plan the forfeits with them and the twins. I didn't have to do it because I got all eight questions right. As for my challenge..." His expression became one of a mix of mortification and anger, "they'd managed to gather up the remains of what I'd been cooking in class and blended it up with tomatoes, toothpaste and vodka." I was fairly certain that I was gaping at him.

"You used to plan the pranks?" I asked in awe. When he- albeit hesitantly- nodded, I think my mind was blown. That was so cool. We finished our meals, I had pizza of course, and Arthur had fish and chips, and it was finally time to go back to my dorm.

From: IH8YOUALL

To: HERO_

CC: PastaSpam

Don't forget, burger bastard. Tomorrow at six.

I stared at my phone in horror. I couldn't even ask Arthur for help now, he'd just gone to his dorm. Something about being an old man, or did I just make that up?

From: HERO_

To: IH8YOUALL ; PastaSpam

HAHAHA YEAH DUDE I HAVENT FORGOTTEN

I ran up to my dorm room, a growing sense of alarm building up in my chest. There, pinned to my door, was a tomato, dripping its juices down the previously white wood. I may or may not have screamed, but Lukas flung a ball of fire in my direction from down the hall, so I threw myself into the room and slid down the inside until I was sitting on the floor. I'd really messed up this time.

I must've fallen asleep there because I woke up to Lovino pounding on the door, spitting what probably weren't polite greetings.

"Wake up burger bastard! You're late!" I curled up in the doorway, trying to decide whether I could just ignore them, when there was a scraping sound in the lock. I lost it and rolled away, screeching at him to leave me alone.

"Ve~ Just come along nicely or-a we'll have to talk to our-a contacts in the Mafia!" I stared incredulously at them until there was a loud bang from down the hall.

"Lukas! Thank god!" Lukas was fully dressed and, despite yelling at me last night about trying to sleep, he didn't look like he'd had any rest whatsoever, if the dark circles were anything to go by.

"Alfred, the sooner you get So Random over and done with, the sooner people forget what mortifying thing you did." A fleeting expression of anger flashed across his face, before his impassive scowl returned.

"BUT I DON'T WANT TO SING 'YANKEE DOODLE DANDY' IN MY UNDERPANTS OUTSIDE THE DORMS!"


	6. Eduard With a Blog

Chapter Six

Synopsis: Alfred wants to join a club, but there don't seem to be many openings. Eduard notices something odd about his blog. Surely his account couldn't have been compromised...? (Please note, some clubs will be the same as in the Gakuen Hetalia episodes, but most will be from my cracky mind.) Please also note that the whole pizzaz with So Random occurred about a week or two ago in this timeline.

Alfred's POV

"Dude, there are literally no clubs to join. At all." I complained to Mattie. We'd received a message from the Headmaster asking slash demanding that we join at least one extracurricular club, but there didn't seem to be many openings. The News Club consisted of Feliciano, Kiku and a vampire named Ludwig who went to night classes and hid in their office a lot of the time. Francis was the head of a Gourmet Cooking Club, which was very exclusive; Arthur had a Black Magic Club that we couldn't join for quite obvious reasons, which related to our lack of magic. Gil, Eliza and Roderich the Austrian were in a Music Club that Gil had actually just gate crashed.

"We could join a Sport-"

"Hobby, real-style yo- WE COULD MAKE A HERO CLUB!" Mattie sighed for some reason, I don't know why. This was totally the best idea ever!

Mattie's POV

 _To: MapleMapleHockeyPancakes_

 _From: THE_AWESOME_GIL_

 _Birdie! Come and meet me in the canteen!_

I sighed, quickly looking between my babbling brother who was making obscure pop culture references and my phone. Alfred wouldn't even notice I was gone, would he? I stopped walking and slowly edged backwards. After crab walking for a few meters, I bolted and ran. Alfred was none the wiser; he'd just bumped into Kiku coming out of the library. I felt bad for him, but I'd rather him than me.

"Kesesese~! Birdie, come here!" He beckoned me over. I followed in confusion and sat down next to him and Antonio, who was trying to get Lovino to stop swearing.

"Eh? What's going on here?" I said, gesturing to the barricade they'd built.

"Well, we're saying its for the Drama Club's reenactment of 'Les Miserables' but we all know that Francis wouldn't be able to perform that without bawling. Anyway, it's for our totally awesome prank!" Francis sniffed (haughtily or out of sheer sadness, I wasn't sure), before he shushed everyone.

"What's going on-" He was cut off by a barrage of paint pellets being thrown at him. The unmanly screech that followed sounded a lot like...

Arthur's POV

 _From: MapleMapleHockeyPancakes_

 _To: CaptainKirkland ; MMDHonda_

 _Please send help to the canteen and fabric conditioner to Alfred's room._

I looked at the message and blinked. I looked up at Kiku, who looked just as confused as I felt.

"It seems like Alfred-San has fallen victim to the paint prank."

"Those bloody wankers."

Once we got Alfred cleaned up (some stains would remain though, it seemed), he returned to his usual obnoxiously cheerful self. He trailed after Kiku and I all the way up to the library, where he chattered non stop to us for the whole morning, despite the fact that there were plenty of things he could be doing with himself on a Saturday that didn't include watching the Council filing paperwork.

"So with the budget for the dance, I was thinking that we could raise donations at the Talent Show."

"I agree. What do we plan to do about the cuts to club funding?"

"I thought we could take a chunk out of the Cooking Club's funds." Kiku rolled his eyes with a sigh- It wasn't like I knew why though!- and pulled out a copy of last year's clubs and the applications for the new year.

"It looks like the Refined Gentlemen Club has changed hand." I scoffed at that.

"Of course they did. My brothers were the only ones in that club and they did it to make me jealous!"

Alfred's POV

This was it! This was my moment! They were going through the club applications and any moment now, they'd see my awesome Hero Club!

"Really Alfred?" Arthur asked with a raised eyebrow.

"A Hero Club..." Kiku scanned through our application, eyebrows furrowed, before glancing between Arthur and I, "technically, everything's in order here, Arthur. Alfred-San's club has ticked all of the boxes and I can't see a problem." I practically glowed like the Fourth of July with pride.

"Other than the fact that the whole idea is absurd!"

"Trust the soup!"

Elizabeta's POV

I was on my way down to Football, whistling as I went, when I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket.

 _From: MMDHonda_

 _To: FryingPanFury ; Austriano_

 _Have we considered shipping Alfred-San and Arthur at all?_

I felt my eyes light up with glee, making a poor First Year flinch away as I walked past. Rounding a corner, I rolled into the bathroom that I knew was there and whipped my phone out again. I went straight to photos and looked through the many albums I had there. Arthur took up an alarmingly large amount of them with his many boyfriends and odd girlfriends.

"Artonio was beautiful while it lasted..." She whispered to herself, before archiving the folder. The 'Kirefoy' folder was, perhaps, the largest album on there though, mostly of rather compromising photos of Arthur and Francis' dates. They'd gone out for about a year, before Arthur got bored and Francis set his eyes on a new... Person.

 _From: FryingPanFury_

 _To: MMDHonda ; Austriano ; BeauFrancis_

 _The new ship has sailed. Meet me in the club room fifteen minutes before the new Kuro no Sekai episode begins._

And thus, the next meeting for the Otaku Club was arranged. They did occasionally invite Francis because, not only was he excellent at finding information about their new ships, he was an incredibly skilled photographer. With that, she closed the messaging app the school used and dashed down to football, ten minutes late, swearing in Hungarian all the way.

Arthur's POV

As much as I didn't want to, I encouraged Alfred to come and tryout for the football team to distract him. We needed an extra midfielder to support Feli and Elizabeta, and we could do with another defender to support Gilbert and Matthias, who was in goal. Elizabeta came skidding into the changing rooms just as I was explaining the formations to Alfred.

"We use a 4-4-2 formation. Eliza and Feli play Centre Forward, then we have Ivan temporarily assigned as Centre Mid. Mogens is our other Centre Mid and then we have Berwald and Bella as Left and Right Mid. In defence, we have you for now as Centre Back, I'm Left Back, Tino's Right Back and Gil is Centre Back."

Alfred's POV

I wasn't listening to a word Arthur said! I didn't need to really though because the little pictures meant I could figure out who each person was! I knew Eliza and Feli, and that Commie Bastard, Mogens and Bella were the scary ones from Anatomy and Berwald was the giant standing in the corner with the little guy who was Tino, the guy I bumped into before So Random.

"Who wants to run the warm up today? Ah, Eliza, go for it." Eliza took the whistle with a grin.

"Everyone in a line! Now, I'll be partnering you all up. Mogens, you're with Bella; Berwald, you're with Tino; Alfred, you're with Arthur; Ivan, you'll be with Feli and Gil can be with Mat." I grinned at Arthur, who simply rolled his eyes at me. Elizabeta had us working hard; we ran a few laps of the field first, before moving onto drills.

"What the fuck do you call that Alfred? I told you to do crunches! Not lay there!" Eliza was a cruel mistress and that warm up was possibly the most exercise I'd ever done in my life. "Practice games now! Form two teams!" Arthur immediately moved towards Mathias and Feliciano edged his way into their group. Before I could even move, Berwald and Tino joined them, making them a five.

"Ve~ surely Alfred and Ivan should-a be on opposite teams?" Feli asked with a smile. Eliza waved a hand as he said that; she was too busy looking at something on her phone and grinning. Probably texting the Austrian or something. I was at the stage where I had no idea whether she was dating Roderich or Gilbert. Arthur and his team exchanged a few looks, before Berwald shrugged and joined the other team. Ivan was in their group faster than I could blink and I scowled a little at him. I wanted to join Arthur's team!

Elizabeta's POV

I was frantically messaging Kiku about the new developments and grinned. My good mood fell quickly though, when I saw that Arthur and Alfred were on opposite sides, with both of them in defence. They were unlikely to interact at all at this rate! I watched the game with an increasing feeling of anxiety. Arthur's team were completely annihilating Alfred's team! This wouldn't do at all... I chewed my thumb and looked down at my phone, where the messages from Kiku, who was supposedly in the library, were piling up.

 _From: FryingPanFury_

 _To: MMDHonda ; BeauFrancis ; Austriano_

 _We may need to meet earlier. Half an hour before the episode. Bring food and supplies._

I'd never done that before, not even when I found out that Antonio was dating Bella. This was an emergency. I ended the game a few minutes early (not that any of them would realise) and sent them all off to the changing rooms after congratulating our new players and assuring them that they had made the cut. No one could easily replace Alistair or Erin Kirkland, but from what I had seen of the game, they played exceptionally well. Even if Alfred wasn't sure what exactly the game was called. I donned my uniform faster than I ever had before and hurtled towards the club meeting room, where Roddy, Francis and Kiku were discussing something unimportant.

"So our new ship is ready to set sail," Kiku explained, "we just need a name for it now."

Alfred's POV

That hadn't gone horrendously I guess. I made the team! Not like I wasn't expecting to, of course.

"Hey Mattie!" Mattie stopped walking to let me catch up, which was real nice of him, "So I don't need to start a hero club anymore! I'm on the soccer team!" Mattie looked confused, then alarmed.

"Isn't Arthur on the football team? I didn't think he wanted you joining..."

"You'd be surprised. Everything is so extraordinarily available today." Mattie grimaced at yet another obscure reference.

"You need to stop hanging around with Tony and whoever that boy is who insists he's Ladonian."

I felt the compelling need, a few hours later, to inform Eduard of something. Something weird.

"Yo Eddie!" Eduard was an Estonian student who had seemingly been absorbed into Ivan's group, along with Ravis, Toris and Ivan's sister, the one with the big boobs. He seemed determined though, if his blog was anything to go by, to join Lukas and Mathias' group.

"Yes? Can I help you?" He seemed confused, so I shot him my fifty million megawatt smile.

"I follow your blog yanno? I checked it a few minutes ago maybe like fifteen and it was down for some reason. You might want to check it out because obv-" I was cut off, to my irritation, by Eduard yelping and dashing towards the nearest IT room. A few moments later, as I passed it, there was an unearthly scream and something that sounded like 'kolkolkol~' being repeated over and over. I shrugged and hijacked Mattie once again to discuss how great soccer/ football was and how much Lukas and Ivan sucked and how weird Elizabeta was and what was up with Kiku?

How lucky are you guys? Not very considering I abandoned this story for months, so to make up for it, you got a double update! Yay! I'm so sorry I swear this won't happen too often. It's just... German... I hope to finish uploading this story to by just after Christmas, then I'll post the edited version onto my Wattpad account, galaxygirl2012. Enjoy for now!


	7. Brotherly Love

Chapter Seven

Synopsis: Alfred finds out that his brother is dating someone, but he's keeping it secret! If only Alfred could figure out who on earth it is... He enlists in the help of Kiku, a quiet, Japanese Shapeshifter, and his brother, Yao the genie, to figure out what's going on! (Halloween time at last x3)

Alfred's POV

I was just walking down the corridor.

Honestly, it wasn't my fault this time!

Kiku just... Flew into me. Quite literally. He shifted back into a human and we sat, dazed for a moment.

"What's up dude?" I managed weakly after a few moments. I hadn't spoken to him much since the whole 'So Random' incident and, to be honest, there were times when I still shuddered to think about that hellish night.

"I was looking for my br- Yao. Was he at lunch?" I shook my head.

"Nah dude, sorry. The BTT pranked him, something to do with glitter and washing up liquid," I pulled out the sandwich I'd grabbed, "he asked me to save him something to eat." Kiku took the sandwich with a solemn nod.

"What subject do you have next?" Kiku asked, once we were finally off the floor and dusting ourselves down.

"I have Tactical? Maybe?"

"As do I. Let us go or we'll be late." Kiku, like Arthur, had an air of authority that demanded space in the teeming halls, and we got to Tactical without so much as a problem.

"Jones, you aren't even in this class. Get out." Kiku gave me an apologetic look as I was ushered out the door. The totally unheroic teacher threw me out of the class without even telling me where I was supposed to be going! I moped along the hallways, trying to decide if it was worth going up to my dorm and grabbing my schedule, when I got a message through.

 _From: MapleMapleHockeyPancakes_

 _To: HERO__

 _Are you busy baby? x_

Wait, what? I almost dropped my phone in horror, but managed to keep it together long enough to notice the second message.

 _From: MapleMapleHockeyPancakes_

 _To: HERO__

 _THAT WASN'T MEANT TO GO TO YOU PLEASE IGNORE THAT THANK YOU BYE._

Those messages taught me two very important things. The first was that my brother was dating someone and I needed to figure out who. The second thing was that I had a free period, if Mattie was texting.

During my free period, I examined everyone in the study room that Mattie spoke to often. It was actually pretty hard, considering I barely ever noticed him with anyone, but I was slowly narrowing it down-

"Alfred! Dear God we've been trying to get your attention for five minutes!" Arthur and Yao, neither of whom looked impressed, stood with massive stacks of books. Yao had dropped his on the table, which was what had gotten my attention in the first place.

"Sup dudes!" This was perfect! I could talk to them about everything going on! I grinned as they sat down, flicking open textbooks to do homework that probably wasn't due in for another week.

"You westerners..." Yao muttered, shooting me disapproving looks.

"Hey look, so Mattie has a boyf or girl and I want to know who it is." Arthur gave me an incredulous look.

"Have you tried asking him?" Arthur asked, exasperated. Yao was still trying to work out the slang that 'us westerners' were using.

"That's too easy!"

Kiku's POV

"Kiku!" A voice screeched. I spun round, ready to attack, when I saw who it was.

"Eliza, what's wrong?" She was flushed red from running and gasped for breath once she reached me. After regaining her composure, she shot me a grin that sent a sophomore student into a clumsy U-turn and back in the direction he was coming from.

"First, the season finale of 'Blood Red Hands' is absolutely amazing," I nodded in agreement at that, "and secondly, Matthew Williams has a boyfriend!"

"Who?" I asked, confusion clear in my voice.

"Club meeting, now."

Alfred's POV

I was in a pretty bad mood after study, mostly because I had learnt nothing and the other two refused to offer assistance of any sort.

"Hey there Kiku," I muttered, in a tone that was probably a little bitter.

"What's the matter Alfred-San?" He asked, pausing and furrowing his eyebrows. It was now dinner time, and Kiku was probably making his way to the canteen. "Are you missing dinner?" Pressed an astonished Kiku. True, this rarely happened. I love food, don't get me wrong.

"Mattie's keeping secrets from me!" I whined. "He's dating someone and he won't tell me who!" Technically, that wasn't true. I hadn't asked. Although, after the whole awkward texting thing, I doubted that he'd tell me anyway. Kiku paused, as though he were about to say something.

"I may know something about that." Just as he was about to tell me though, Yao emerged from the canteen.

"Kiku! You should get some dinner!"

"I wish I-" I began, but Kiku slapped a hand over my mouth. Surprised, I almost bit him. "Wh te hu dude!" I muttered.

"Do not make wishes around Yao," He cautioned, removing his hand, before giving it a disgusted look and whipping out a bottle of pomegranate hand sanitiser, "It will not end well." He mumbled. "We were discussing Matthew-San's new boyfriend. We would like to find out who it is."

"Would you like a wish aru?"

"I wish I had a million dollars!"

The Next Day...

That, it turned out, was a horrible mistake. I woke up the next day, Halloween, not exactly feeling the festivities. Yao had indeed given me a million dollars. In debts. Little bitch. Trudging down to the canteen for breakfast, I noticed the decorations with surprise.

"The magic club do them," Elizabeta said as she walked past with a grin, "at least, we think they do. They get better every year." It looked like Hogwarts! There were live bats flying around; blue tinted fog rolling and coiling around the floor, occasionally grabbing people's ankles; buckets of sweets hanging from realistic trees that lined the walls, creating a forest. I grabbed a handful and tossed some to Eliza, who caught them with a grin as she made her way to her own table. I noted that Vlad was asleep and Lukas had some pretty wicked dark circles under his eyes. He had enough baggage to fill a John Green book.

"This place looks awesome!" I exclaimed as I sat down with my bowl of Cheerios. Ivan almost sat on me, Arthur was dozing off and Francis was throwing little bits of his Pain au Chocolat at Arthur's head. Where were Mattie and Yao?

"Trick or Treating tonight," Francis commented to no one in particular, "are you dressing up, Alfred?"

"You trick or treat here? Epic! Where do you go?"

"It's not exactly extravagant. The local town mostly. It's tightly supervised." He seemed bitter about that. We ate in silence, at least until I remembered that I still didn't know who Mattie was dating.

"Do you know who my brother's seeing?" I blurted. Francis shot me a look before shrugging, moving onto his strawberry crepes.

"That isn't my concern." He refused to say anything else, but I saw his eyes flick over to the Eastern European table. Eliza. She'd be the next person I ask, but what was Kiku saying about knowing something? I'd been so preoccupied yesterday with the fact that Yao had put me a million bucks in debt that I freaked and forgot to ask altogether. We had French next period together, so I decided to ask then...

"Hey Kiku? What'd you get for question three?" Not completely crashing and burning in French was more important, and Madame De Cillia was glaring at me. I slunk further into my seat. Arthur had misplaced his French homework and Gilbert had set fire to his French book in protest (he had planned to take German), so her bitter mood was understandable, but a pain.

"Meet us in room F13 at lunch." He said cryptically, before vanishing into the crowd. I had no idea who 'us' was, but I knew that I definitely had Maths next. By some miracle, I'd been put in top set, the same class as Arthur, Yao, Vash and a number of others whom I recognised. However...

"Arthur!" I hissed, dropping to the floor in front of his and Ludwig the vampire's desk (I'd seen and been introduced to Ludwig just after So Random). "The only seats left are with Lukas and Vash! They're both mean!" I said with a pout.

"I suggest sitting vith Vash." Said Ludwig, just at the same time as Arthur said, "come on! Lukas isn't that bad!" I examined both seats. Vash was glaring at me and Lukas had his earbuds in, completely ignoring everyone. I opted for the Brit's opinion.

"Hey there Lukie!"

"Don't fucking call me that." Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea. I sat in silence as the class eventually quiet ended down and began to work. Waiting for the teacher, I flipped open a notebook and started doodling. About ten minutes later, Lukas elbowed me.

"Dude!" I squealed, clutching my side.

"Are you ever going to start the work?" Lukas demanded. I blinked in confusion. There still wasn't a teacher, but I now realised that everyone else had identical worksheets. "You've been in this class for almost a month and you still haven't done any of the work?"

"In my defence, I don't normally sit with anyone. I just assumed that this was a study period." Lukas gave up and plugged back in to his Finnish screamo.

Towards the end of the lesson, I realised that Lukas had done all the work and leant over to copy some of his answers. He glared at me and shuffled over, muttering something that I couldn't make out. As soon as the bell went, he was up and out of that class faster than you could say pannerkaken.

Morosely, I wandered alone, before realising I had a meeting in F13. I wasn't sure what sort of classes were usually taught in there, but upon arrival, I saw that it was an art room in the old block, meaning it wasn't used. The door creaked eerily as I entered and slammed shut behind me.

"Whoever that is, shut up." Called a female voice from behind the screen. I crept around it to find Elizabeta, Francis, Kiku and Gilbert, sat watching... An anime?

"S'up dudes?" I whisper shouted and flopped down next to Gilbert. Yao entered about ten minutes later, briefly whispering something to Kiku while occasionally looking my way. When the episode had ended (something to do with blood and 3DMG?) Elizabeta and Kiku spun around to look at me expectantly.

"What did you learn while you were out?" They asked.

"Uh, nothing? I had maths and I sat next to Lukas." Kiku flinched, looking back to their screen.

"Later losers," Gilbert said with a grin, kissing Eliza and messing up my hair as he left.

"Listen," said Eliza, "your ideas all suck so listen to me. Tonight, after trick or treating, is the annual costume ball. Naturally, the three of us will be attending, but we will also be infiltrating the costume groups beforehand. I know the costumes of everyone at my table, so we can put them to one side. Kiku, hang around with Berwald, Mathias and that lot and offer to help with their costumes. You know that none of your friends are dating him. I'll help with Mattie and try to get something out of him. Alfred, that leaves you in the hands of the your table. Good luck." I yelped in surprise as she handed me a list and slapped me on the back.

Elizabeta's POV

I loved the costume balls (we have one for most big annual events) but this time I was nervous. I chewed on my lip as I looked for Kiku and Alfred. Matthew and his date had arrived (looking quite stunning) and I could confirm that he wasn't from my table, but I couldn't get much from Mattie about any of it. Every time I even mentioned the topic, he'd shy away from it like I'd bite him or something.

"Alfred!" I almost tripped over my skirt (or was it some of that handsy fog?) as I raced over to him. He looked a little glum.

"He's not from our table. Must be one of the Nordics." That seemed a bit... Weird to me. It couldn't be Berwald or Tino because they were together. Mathias and Lukas were together too, and Peter was far too young. What on earth...?

"It's Lukas-San!" Kiku puffed.

"What?!"

"Yao told me, but I wasn't sure if he was telling the truth." Kiku slumped down against a tree, regaining his breath. Alfred stared at his brother in shock. He was wearing a suit and a mask, quite possibly the only things that he could keep on. He was drifting alongside... Well, I think he was a monk. He was in all black with his hood up. We now knew that it was Lukas.

"I think that they both look wonderful." I declared. Matthew seemed happy enough that someone had noticed him and didn't assume that he was his brother, and I could see a faint smile under Lukas' hood. "Would you like to dance, Neko-San?" I asked Kiku, who took my proffered hand. I felt somewhat bad leaving Alfred gaping at Lukas and Mattie, but the feelings were squashed pretty quickly.

Alfred's POV

I grabbed Mattie as he was leaving the dance and dragged him upstairs to my dorm, where my candy haul was waiting. Due to his ghostly circumstances, he couldn't really go trick or treating with us, so I'd share some of my candy like the hero I am!

"Mattie! You're dating Lukas?" I managed to garble as soon as I'd shut the door behind him.

"Yes. Is that a problem?"

"Whoa bro. Straight on the defence. No no, but why didn't you tell me?" I heard the whine creep back into my voice as I plopped down on my double bed. Mattie floated over to my desk and perched on the edge, eyeing my AP Physics textbook with unease.

"Why didn't I tell you?" He asked, eyebrows furrowing, "you never asked. Duh."

Okay so this was late for Halloween, I tried but I was at a party and fell asleep before I'd even taken the make up off properly, which says a lot. This chapter is for all of you who woke up this morning in a pile of sweet wrappers with no idea what was going on and a sugar induced migraine. Next chapter: Bonfire night!


	8. Natalya Meets World

Chapter Eight

Synopsis: Natalya is a Dziwożona, a spirit that simply can't help but latch onto young, single men and try to seduce them to their deaths. When she targets her brother, Ivan, Alfred feels the heroic need to intervene and fix their relationship before Ivan is forced into an untimely death, but there are other forces working in the background at the same time...

Arthur's POV

Ivan didn't really like Alfred.

It wasn't like our resident hero would notice, but Ivan really didn't like him. I observed the pair from behind my History textbook. The exchange was suspicious, I decided.

"Still stalking Alfie?" Vlad asked from over my shoulder. I hit him. After all, this wasn't stalking, I was simply trying to stop the bloody idiot from making too much of a fool of himself. He was acting strange... So was Ivan... Normally it's Alfred trying to pester Ivan, but today it seems as though Ivan had come to Alfred to ask something, before he paled and fled.

"Yo Artie, what're you doing?" I recoiled in horror as the American loomed over me. Vlad could be heard snickering in the background somewhere.

"History. What does it look like you git?"

"Dude! This is basically a free period! That means we get to do what we want!"

"That isn't studying you twat!" Alfred laughed obnoxiously, but was then distracted by... Matthew? Was that his name? With a scowl, I turned to Vash, who looked equally angry as he sat down fifteen minutes late, but then again, he never looked especially happy.

"Arthur." He said with a curt nod. I suppressed a sigh. This'd be a long day...

It wasn't until third period that I understood Alfred and Ivan's odd behaviour. There was a girl with long, ashy blonde hair, most definitely a spirit, who was clinging to Ivan's arm as if her afterlife depended on it. Ivan looked like he was considering screaming. I watched a little longer as he attempted to keep up a civil conversation with her, but the relief on his face as Alfred appeared from nowhere and swept him off was undeniable.

From: CaptainKirkland

To: FUCKTWILIGHT ; NorwegianRidgeback812

Magic club meeting. Now.

The basement was where our club met; the darkest, most secluded part of the school. Very few people, including teachers, knew that the school even had a basement. Bookshelves lined the walls and a chalk circle was in the centre of the room, empty, and awaiting salt and a pentagram of some kind. I arrived in our club room moments before Lukas arrived, his usual impassive glare fixed into place. He unpacked his books and Vlad ran in, clearly out of breath.

"Sorry! Only just checked my phone." He grinned as he dropped his half-trashed Nokia onto the table, next to Lukas' stack of books.

"You didn't specify what we were doing," Lukas murmured, "so I just brought books on everything." I waved a hand, summoning three chairs over and we sat down.

"I'm sure you've noticed the new student, who seems to be related to Ivan and Katyusha?" Lukas tilted his head in confusion, but Vlad nodded eagerly.

"I overheard Elizabeta talking about that! Natalya Braginski, she's a spirit. Roderich doesn't like her." He told them.

"I thought she was dating Gilbert?" Lukas muttered under his breath. Personally, I'd thought that Roderich was dating Gilbert but it seemed we were all wrong.

"That isn't important. I'm sure you've noticed that she doesn't behave like normal spirits. I called this meeting because we need to figure out what she is and whether it's dangerous." Lukas hummed, picking up one of the books from the middle of the pile.

"Vlad, go check the bookcases. Arthur, try your grimoire. I'm certain we'll find something. My original suspicion is that she is malevolent, but we need to be sure."

"Even malevolent spirits can be controlled, right?" Vlad chirped as he flicked through books and tossed them to one side. "After all, the headmaster set her loose in the school. He must be sure that's safe, right?"

"Wouldn't bank on that if I were you." I muttered. Lukas said nothing. It wasn't until a good hour later that there was a cheer from the Romanian.

"Hey, I found something!" Both of us peered over Vlad's shoulder to see what he was looking at.

"Dwy- what?"

"Dziwożona." Lukas said the correct pronunciation for both Vlad and I. "A traditional spirit. Malevolent." I read through the rather limited information the book had, before sighing a little to myself.

"This may apply to her, but we don't know her well enough to be able to tell." There was a bit of a pause, before Vlad decided to interrupt.

"Speaking of dating," he began, "I heard you have a new Canad-" he was cut off abruptly by a spell book that mysteriously lifted itself into the air and launched itself at his face. Lukas was now flipping furiously through a book, cheeks tinged a light pink. Vlad, suspicions now confirmed, began laughing hysterically.

"Oh man, you two won't last a month! He's way too nice for you Lulu!" Lukas didn't reply. Instead, he shot the Romanian a glare and buried his face in the Grimoire, muttering cuss words (or perhaps a curse) under his breath. a After a terse silence, I snapped the book I was reading shut with a cloud of dust billowing from it.

"This isn't getting us anywhere. We need to ask Ivan himself." Vladimir visibly shuddered at my suggestion.

"Couldn't we ask Kat? She won't try to kill us. Plus she's got those great ti-" He was cut off by a hefty book which had conveniently slammed into his forehead. I nodded wearily to Lukas in thanks and gathered up my books and Vlad's phone.

"Come on, drama queen." Lukas muttered as we made our way out of the basement.

Alfred's POV

The magic trio looked... Suspicious today. Well, that's what Kiku told me anyway. I didn't notice; too busy being a hero! Arthur hadn't been at lunch, that much I knew, but then again our table rarely had all six of us there for some reason or another, be it an emergency cooking club meeting, soccer slash football practice or Matthew opting to eat in the library when everything got a bit too much. Either way, as soon as I knew who I was looking for, my heroic job became a lot easier!

"Hey there Lukas." I said, sliding into the chair behind said blonde in the library. He responded by slamming his weird old book shut (resulting in a massive cloud of dust) and then slamming a fist into my face before storming out. In my defence, I only cried for about a minute. With a sigh, I realised that I was going to have to... Up the espionage.

"Ivan dude, I have a proposal for you." The Russian looked alarmed at first, but then his expression shifted to one of suspicion.

"Elaborate." It looked like he was still touchy over the whole business with Toris and Ravis...

"I'll help you get your sister off your back if you help me infiltrate the black magic club." A thoughtful expression crossed that stupid, chiselled face of his as he weighed up his options.

"That is a deal." He replied eventually, with that damn smile. Commie bastard.

It was about an hour later that we were lurking around the ground floor. We sort of figured out where they usually met, but we were having some trouble getting in... There was one door which we assumed was the one for the basement, where we guessed that the club met. It had no lock or handle or hinges.

"Our plan has a lot of guesswork in it." Ivan said in a sing song sort of voice. "We had a deal, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah. Shut up, I'm thinking."

"Need a hand?" A voice chimed. Ivan and I jumped back almost comically as Vlad popped up between us. He seriously needed to stop doing that. "It's blood warded."

"So what does that mean?" I muttered, staring at what I now realised wasn't exactly a door. It was just a piece of wood in the wall, disguised as a door.

"This." He said, raising a hand to his mouth and biting down on his thumb. As I shrieked in horror, Vlad wiped his bleeding hand down the frame of the door. With a rumble, the door slid back, leaving a vast, dark expanse. Vlad extended a hand, ushering us in. Still terrified, I half tripped over the threshold of the room and would have fallen down the stairs, had Ivan not grabbed me by the back of my jacket and hauled me back to my feet. I nodded at him as a vague, yet menacing expression of thanks, and the three of us made our way down the stairs.

"So..." I began, flopping down into a comfy green chair.

"So?" Vlad asked, leaning on the blue sofa. "You're the ones who were hanging round. What did you want?" His phone chimed, indicating a text, but he grimaced and put it away after seeing who it was, muttering something about a frying pan under his breath.

"Natalya. How can we get her off Ivan's back?" Ivan tensed up a little.

"I do not want to lose her, yes? I just want her to be happier."

"And to stop clinging to your back whenever she finds you? No offence dude."

"Well, Ivan, do you know what kind of spirit she is?" Ivan shook his head. "She's a Dziwożona, sort of like a really picky ghostly siren. Young, single and attractive men are her target." Vlad winked at Ivan, who was growing increasingly uncomfortable, before continuing. "You shouldn't find it creepy really. It's not fair. She probably idolised you when you were kids, that's probably where the basis of this is, not incest."

"But how do we stop her hassling him?" I pressed. Vlad shot me a wicked grin.

"Easy. You have to date him." I stared at Vlad, slightly shell shocked.

"Agreed." Ivan said, quite happily. "My boyfriend."

"Whoa there man, I did not agree-"

"Yes you did. I helped you get in here, so now you have to help me. You made a deal, da? Heroes don't break promises." Vlad's evil smirk was starting to piss me off just a little, and I had the sneaking suspicion that Lukas, Gilbert and Mattie had played some part in setting this whole thing up, but I nodded, shoulders slumping in defeat.

"Don't think that I love you or anything!" I insisted as we left, his arm slung over mine. "I'm only doing this because I'm a hero, and I don't go back on promises!"

Vlad's POV

"Okay I got them together. Please stop being such a bitch now, okay?" I said with a grin towards my frenemy.

"No promises." Elizabeta replied, tossing my favourite hat back to me. I cradled it close to my chest, glaring at her.

"I thought you wanted Alfred to get with Arthur?" I asked. I wouldn't deny it, I was suspicious of her motives. Regardless, my hat was more important to me than whatever love games she was playing, although I would probably sacrifice my hat if it meant Artie and Lukie were happy.

"I do, but we needed a little... Incentive. Well, Arthur does. I am a mere Bishop in these games." I raised a sceptical eyebrow.

"Hey, what do you think of Lukie's new boyfriend? What's his name again?"

"Matthew." She replied, shoulders slumping in defeat. "I think they're cute together, but I don't think it'll work out. Lukas is too much of a virgin and his Mattie is looking for someone a little more dominating. I can tell." She explained.

"I didn't need to know any of that." I said, recoiling a little in disgust. "I give them until the end of the week." I was turning to leave, when Eliza called out.

"Vlad?"

"Yes?"

"How did you get them together so easily?" I shot her my trademark grin.

"Sometimes, you need to withhold the truth. They always find it eventually."


	9. Pair of Losers

Chapter Nine

Synopsis: Alfred overhears a conversation between Elizabeta and Katyusha, a genie. Elizabeta is expressing her frustration about two 'complete losers' who are presumably trying to woo her. Alfred and Vladimir decide that they're going to secretly and discretely stop anyone trying to make a licentious move towards her, but are they missing a part of the story...?

Alfred's POV

"... They're so annoying!" I paused outside the girl's bathroom, wiping my hands on the trousers of my uniform. Don't get me wrong! I wasn't being a creep!

"I understand Eliza," came the soothing voice. Katyusha. I flinched back into the wall at the sound of the genie's voice, staring at the wall opposite. The next part of their conversation was muffled, but I could hear two parts. The first part was Eliza complaining about a 'pair of losers' and the second part was about love. I formed my own conclusions.

"Hey Vladimir!" Vlad was the only person who sat at Eliza's table that I really spoke to besides her, and he was still collecting my puddings from me. Well, technically there were only three more days of that.

"Hey Al!" Vladimir shot me a toothy grin as he ticked something off a list.

"Whatcha got there?" I asked, leaning over to look, but Vlad snatched it away and hid it in his pocket.

"Christmas present list. Don't forget, we're drawing Secret Santa names at six in the common room." He was about to turn and leave, when I remembered what I was planning to say to him.

"Hey wait! I wanted to ask you something!"

"Oh? Hurry up then Yankee Doodle Dandy, I don't have all day!" He said with a wicked grin.

"THAT WAS ONE TIME! Plus, you're friends with Eliza, right?" He paused, mulling that over.

"Yes, she's one of my closest friends." He smirked.

"Great! See, I heard her talking to Katyusha about a pair of losers and something about love, so I was wondering if-"

"You plan to beat up any admirers because clearly she doesn't want them?" He shrugged, "I'm in." With that, he swept off in a blur of red cloak which really wasn't uniform.

Vladimir's POV

 _From: FUCKTWILIGHT_

 _To: FryingPanFury_

 _I am not left-handed._

Technically, that was a lie. I am left handed, but 'The Princess Bride' was definitely my favourite movie. It wasn't long before I got a reply.

 _From: FryingPanFury_

 _To: FUCKTWILIGHT_

 _What the hell do you want? I'm busy so fuck you._

While attempting to put my Nokia away like a badass villain or something, I ended up dropping it. With a sigh, as I went to pick it up, a booted foot stomped down on my hand and the phone. One unholy shriek later and I was crouched on the floor, glaring up at... Elizabeta.

"What do you want you goddamn psycho?" She growled. I was about to reply, when I heard a certain... Familiar voice, coming from the common room.

"Hey, who wants to see me chug this entire fucking bottle of tonic water?"

"Gilbert, mon dieu, MERDE, NON!" There was silence as Eliza and I sat outside in slight horror, until Antonio and Francis dragged Gilbert out, who appeared to be choking.

"Why the fuck did you guys let me do that?" He was wailing. They hauled him off in the direction of the bathroom. They were good friends, I decided. After all, taking him to the medical room was certainly the wise thing to do, if it were anyone but Gilbert, seeing as his dad would know straight away that he'd been doing stupid shit.

"So what did you want?" Eliza asked again, still slowly crushing my hand between her foot, an unstoppable force, and the Nokia, an indestructible and immovable object.

"I was just going to warn you about something." I wheezed. She'd definitely broken at least two of my fingers. At least I could keep Gilbert company, seeing as he'd probably take a frying pan to the face after she was through with me. Despite their best efforts, Francis and Antonio couldn't stop her breaking his nose.

"Go on." She said. The pressure on my hand hadn't lessened, but she'd stopped pressing down on it now. I allowed myself a small sigh of relief.

"Your love life might get a little bit... Rocky. Take some advice from your old pal and take care." Reverse psychology? Check. She glared once more, before removing her foot and stomping off, texting furiously. I would have given her a sarcastic wave goodbye, but I had a medical room to get to...

After a few glares from Gilbert's Vati and some snickers from aforementioned werewolf at my supposed crying (honestly, there were just some really strong chemicals.), I was finally released with the index and middle finger of my right hand taped together. I dragged myself back to the common room, grateful that I only had one more lesson left of the year. Upon arriving, I noticed a very... Angry seeming corner. Arthur and Lukas. Grimacing to myself, I made my way over to them.

"What's wrong with you two?"

"We broke up."

"Too bloody close." I blinked in confusion. I understood Lukas' predicament almost immediately, but it wasn't until I followed Arthur's glares that I realised something. Alfred. Ivan. Very close.

"Oh." I plopped down beside Lukas and wrapped an arm around him, pulling him into my chest for a hug. "Well, my platonic husband, you need to cheer up. If it wasn't meant to be then there's always the future." And a hot Dane who was very into him, but that wasn't important right now. "And you, Captain, need to stop glaring and get laid to be honest." Lukas was glaring emotionlessly at the ceiling, head resting in my lap. That wasn't a bad thing, I decided, after gauging his expression. Arthur looked as though he was half embarrassed, half murderous. Just as he was about to say something in his defence slash murder me, Francis clapped his hands and rose, causing the room to quieten down.

"Well mes Chers, mes Cheries, it's that time of the year again when we'll be celebrating commercialisation and tinsel!" He produced a Santa hat, filled to the brim with slips of paper. "You should all know how this works. You all pick a name out of the hat and have a spending limit of a hundred kroner to buy a present for them. This is meant to be secret Santa, might I add." He smirked as he waltzed around with the garish hat, offering everyone a slip of paper, before taking one himself and putting the hat on Antonio. I kept mine in my hand, willing myself to have picked someone easy, before opening it.

Roderich Edelstein

Things just got interesting.

Alfred's POV

I had no idea what to get him. At all. What does one buy a fake boyfriend for Christmas? I tried to ask Arthur but quickly changed my mind after he got into a fight with Francis. Lukas and Vlad were asleep sort of on each other, and Kiku was nowhere to be seen.

"Hey Elizabeta?" She turned around from where she was braiding Natalya's hair. "I need your help. With something. Personal." Hoping she got the hint, I plopped myself down on one of the sofas by the Christmas tree and waited for her to finish.

"So what's up?" She asked, kicking her steel toe-capped boots up onto the chair - was that blood?

"I don't know what to get Ivan for Christmas." I muttered, trying to pretend that the blood wasn't there. She squealed a little, before patting my hands.

"That has to come from the heart! I can't tell you what to get!" She seemed much too excited as she bounded off, presumably to find Kiku.

At breakfast the next day, I was morosely poking the cereal around my bowl. Cookie Crisp was usually one of my favourites, but today I wasn't feeling it; worry was taking up most of the space in my gut.

"Mes Amis," Francis said, slapping Arthur and I on the backs, "you both need to eat. You," he said, pointing to me, "need to do hero things, oui? You need energy. And you," he turned to Arthur, "need to sustain those parasitic eyebrows of yours." Several punches later, we were both eating, to Francis' delight. Well, until Vlad descended on us like a crimson bat.

"Artie, I think Lulu wanted to talk to you. Alfred, come hither." With that, he swept off in a clear violation of the school dress code. I followed suit, in my mildly violating bomber jacket, to where he'd summoned me.

"What's up dude?"

"Loads of things! First, Lukas is like, pretty upset. If you'd remembered that you have a brother, you'd have seen that he's upset too. Talk to Mattie, will you? Then, Feliks told me that Toris said that Mathias told him and Berwald that Gilbert is going to ask Elizabeta out again tonight!" He said the last sentence in one whole exhalation of breath, looking a little red in the face.

"Okay, we need a plan. Your ideas will suck so listen to me..."

Gilbert's POV

Being made fun of by your best friends is totally unawesome. I ran a gelled hand through my hair, making it stick up a little. Just right, I decided with a grin.

"Bruder, what are you doing?" Ludwig asked with a sigh from his bed, where he was sat with a pair of scissors trying to figure out how to curl the ribbon on Feliciano's present. Presumably.

"Making myself look as awesome as I feel." I explained, running a hand over my cleanly shaven chin.

"That's klasse Bruder, now will you tell me how to curl ribbons?" I bit back a quip about his boyfriend and bounded over to his bed, sitting cross legged and, with the left handed safety scissors that I'd grabbed of the sideboard, I showed him how to curl them, watching as one fell off the plastic.

"See?" He said triumphantly. "Ich bin die beste!"

"We're you going to go and ask out Elizabeta again?" He asked, gesturing in confusion at my suit.

"Nein." I said, fidgeting a little. "Roderich and I were going to go to the opera or some shit. He wanted to." Ludwig didn't say anything, but I felt the silent approval radiating from him. He (totally unawesomely) thought that Eliza wasn't worth it, and that I should date someone that I'll actually stay with. Easy for him to say, considering he and Feliciano had been dating since at least two years ago.

"Were the flowers for him too?" He asked, nodding towards the bouquet. I went a little red, trying not to stutter as I replied.

"Blue cornflowers are his favourite." I said by means of explanation. Ludwig didn't reply, not that I expected him to, and half scowled down at the ribbon he was curling, eyebrows furrowed. Clearly, being a vampire didn't make him any less my younger brother, or any more patient. Personally, I'd only ever seen him be patient with Kiku and, to an extent, Feliciano.

"Have fun." He said with a glance up and a smile. I grinned back and gave him a thumbs up. After double checking that I looked totally awesome (and grabbed my glasses) I carefully too, the bouquet and hip bumped the door open.

Alfred's POV

"Why do we have to sneak about?" I grumbled, along with my stomach. Vlad had made me miss dinner, just so we could stalk Gilbert and Eliza. I could really be doing better things with my life.

"Shh, look! There he is!" I blinked in surprise. I don't think I'd ever seen Gilbert actually make an effort with his appearance, and this was unfamiliar. Black suit, black tie, flowers?

"Does he usually try this hard? I thought he was asking her out, like, dating. Not for dinner!"

"He usually makes an effort." Vlad insisted quickly. "Eliza doesn't take him back if he doesn't try to win her back." We sat in silence or, well, as near to silence as my empty, protesting stomach would allow us.

"Where's he going? Eliza's dorm is that way." I said, pointing in the opposite direction.

"Trust me, Alfred. He goes for a walk to calm his nerves and to wait for her to arrive. Follow me." He dashed off in the direction of Eliza's dorm and produced a spare key which, personally, I didn't want to know the source of. "You be the lookout. We want to make sure Eliza doesn't want to date him, yeah? Leave this to me." I was left standing outside her dorm room with the door ajar, as he did... Whatever it is that he does.

Ten minutes later, I was still standing outside her room when she came up the stairs. Her playful expression quickly become one of exasperation and confusion as she saw me.

"Alfred? What're you doing here?" She asked. "Why is my door open?" She stormed in, before an angry sort of a scream emerged from within. Being a hero, I ran straight in to see if she was okay, when I realised what was going on.

"Uh, do you usually have silly string and Justin Bieber posters as decorations?" I asked, not even noticing the window, opened a little. After all, they were four floors up. It wasn't like Vlad could have gone far, right?

Vlad's POV

It was finally Christmas Eve. Every student in the boarding school, all fifty or so of us, had a stocking up in one of the two common rooms, depending on which their age belonged to. The lights were out in the older kid's common room, with the exception of the fire crackling in its mantle and the twinkling fairy lights on the mismatched trees. Of the two of them, only one really looked presentable, the second having been commissioned by the Bad Touch pack and was finally the result of a heated argument, was covered in garish orange and red and silver tinsel and rainbow lights. It was... Quite a sight.

At around one in the morning, Gilbert and Roderich stumbled in, a little drunk, with their hands all over each other. Vlad snickered a little as they passed and fell up the stairs to one of their rooms, he didn't care to know which.

"Hey Lulu?" He called over to the bundle by the fireplace. "Do you think that Roderich will like the present I got him?"

"Probably."

"Did you hear about what... Happened, to Eliza?" I asked, grinning to myself as I took his empty mug from him and took it to the sink.

"Yes." I thought I could see a smile on his face now. I sat down beside him, throwing my own blanket over our laps as I stared into the fire, which was dying down by now. As the clock struck midnight, I could've sworn that I heard someone padding down the wooden stairs.

"What're you two doing?" Arthur asked, rubbing his eyes tiredly. "Do you even know what the time is?" Arthur was barefoot, dressed only in his mint green pyjamas, with an empty glass in one hand, which he eventually decided to leave in the sink.

"Celebrating Christmas the right way." I told him. "At least, the second best way. There isn't any beer." Arthur shrugged, nudging Lukas over so he could fit under the blankets we were draped in now.

"Merry Christmas, you two."


	10. Freezin' It!

Synopsis: There are five people who sit at a table at lunch. They're an odd combination of a Finnish Elf, a Swedish Werewolf, Peter the Water Elemental, Lukas the Necromancer and Mathias the Regenerator. No one questions why they sit together, but one day, questions are fired around like the ball in a pinball machine. There's a sixth member of their little group.

Alfred's POV

We were all at lunch. You'd think that people would sit together if they hung around each other a lot, like Arthur, Lukas and Vlad, the BTT or Ivan and his squad. That really wasn't the case though.

"Hey dudes! They had enough chips for me this week!" I dropped my tray in my usual seat between Arthur and Yao. It was a weird combination and we had nothing in common, besides a mutual hatred of each other, but our table wasn't even the weirdest. Kiku sat with Gilbert of all people, as well as the Italian twins. Ivan's sisters sat with Eddie, Ravis, Toris and Feliks, even though Natalya shot us death glares every few minutes. Elizabeta sat with Vladimir, the prissy Austrian and Mogens. She didn't even like half of the people at her table, yet they still sat together!

"Hey Artie?"

"It's Arthur, and yes?" Arthur didn't even look up from his book, besides to occasionally bite into his scone.

"Why do we all sit like this?"

"Well in polite society, most people sit on chairs at tables, unless you're Japanese, in-"

"Smartass. I meant, why do we sit in these groups?"

"It depends on who you know Américain. See, I was 'ere before Arthur, and I showed 'im around, Arthur showed you and Yao ze ropes and then Yao introduced Ivan to ze system. It is ze same for everyone else." That did make sense. People usually stuck to people they were familiar with around here and their life could easily be on the line if they messed with the way it all worked. As soon as I thought about it, the cogs in my head started whirring. What would happen if I sat with Kiku right now? What if I had never met Arthur? What if Ivan had been here before me and shown me around?

I finished lunch and headed over to the changing rooms; we had a soccer/ football/ whatever the heck they call it here match next week.

"Hey there Feli, Gilbert. How's it going?" Gilbert was our star defender. His usual attitude would make you assume he was more fitting of a more forward role, but that's why we had Feli. His striking skills were amazing.

"Ve~! I'm-a good grazie! And-a you? Is Arthur coming too?"

"I'm cool thanks Feli! Yeah, Artie's just a seriously slow eater!" The three of us laughed between us and caught up with the other players- including Ivan, Elizabeta and Matthias- as we strolled along to the pitch.

"Hey, Gil, stop flirting with Eliza, you're with Roderich now!" Gil scowled at me.

"You're totally unawesome! I wasn't flirting!"

"When do you think I can make some more pasta?"

"Fucking wanker! I told you to wait for me!"

"Become one with mother Russia?"

"Do you think Lukas saw me do that backflip off the second floor?"

After practice (and being forced into the shower), I headed back up to my room to finish off some last minute homework. Luckily, I only had Physics between lunch and dinner, which was one of my favourites, so I could hang in my room for the whole afternoon! I threw my (new) backpack into the corner of the room, before retrieving it again to fish out my crumpled homework sheets. Not even fifteen minutes later, Mattie slunk in. I didn't even notice that he was there until he coughed to get my attention.

"Fuck!" I screeched, whipping my head around, "I- Hey Mattie. What's up?"

"I was trying to get your attention when you got back from practice." Matthew said with a sigh. "Mathias wanted to talk to you." I was somewhat glad to see that Matthew wasn't quite as uneasy as he usually was.

"What's put you in such a good mood?" I said with a grin. "Got a boyfriend or something?" I was only teasing, but Matthew's face went a dark red as he spluttered. "Shit man I wasn't serious! Tell me, who is he?"

"She," Matthew corrected. "Her name is Katyusha. She's Ivan's younger sister. Not the ghost."

"The one with the big- Ah." I coughed as Matthew glared at me.

"Yes, Alfred." He said icily. "Are you finished?" He wasn't... That angry. Quite pissed, but not as mad as I had seen him before.

"Where am I meeting Mathias anyway?" I asked hurriedly. I sort of valued my life.

"On the roof, I think he said." Matthew said with a sigh, before disappearing. I groaned internally. Mathias being on the roof was never a good thing, seeing how often he liked showing off and breaking everything. Don't get me wrong, it was epic the first few times, but when he started doing it like, every other day, the novelty wore off. As I made my way onto the roof, I saw that he was attempting the knife game.

"Mathias dude, you need to stop like seriously." He looked up at my voice, narrowly missing his finger as he stabbed the knife down. "What did you want to talk about?"

"Waitin' for someone else too, then I'll tell you." He said with a grin, just as the door behind be burst open and a rather out of breath albino emerged.

"Making out with Roddy?" I asked, faux innocently.

"Yeah, actually, so what did you want Mat?" He asked, folding his arms with a huff. Before Mat could respond, however, my phone rang. I blinked in slight confusion, pulling it out. No one called me, especially now that the whole messaging system was in place.

"Yo! Alfred F. Jones. Who's speaking?" I hadn't recognised the caller ID, but I did recognise the voice.

"Alfred you know how I'm like, the Queen of Gossip?"

"Yes Feliks?"

"Okay so like, I need to speak to you. Like now. Library." I raised an eyebrow and, before I could respond, Feliks had hung up.

"That was weird," I mumbled, putting the phone back into my blazer pocket. "What was up Mat? I think I have to go again soon." Mathias looked crestfallen for a brief moment, but it was gone before I could tell what was going through his head.

"Nah man, go meet Feliks. It isn't that important." I nodded, before dashing back down the fire escape to the library.

When I finally got there (I got lost again), Feliks looked like he was about to scream at me for taking so long, but composed himself enough to usher me over and not get us both kicked out by the librarian. As soon as I sat down, a list was thrust into my hands.

 _Ivan's Squad:_

 _\- Natalya_

 _\- Katyusha_

 _\- Ravis_

 _\- Eduard_

 _\- Toris - Bae_

 _\- Feliks (The queen)_

 _The White Flag Table:_

 _\- Feliciano_

 _\- Lovino_

 _\- Kiku_

 _\- Gilbert_

 _\- Ludwig (At dinner)_

 _Al's Table:_

 _\- Alfred_

 _\- Arthur_

 _\- Francis_

 _\- Ivan_

 _\- Yao_

 _\- Mattie_

 _Vash's Table:_

 _\- Vash_

 _Eliza's Table:_

 _\- Elizabeta_

 _\- Roderich_

 _\- Bella_

 _\- Mogens_

 _\- Vladimir_

 _\- Vlad's little brother(?)_

 _\- Antonio_

 _The Fucking Cold Table:_

 _\- Tino_

 _\- Berwald_

 _\- Lukas_

 _\- Peter_

 _\- Matthias_

 _Sadiq's Table:_

 _\- Sadiq_

 _\- Heracles_

 _\- That Quiet Egyptian Kid_

"It's a list?" I asked, confused.

"A list of where everyone sits," Feliks corrected. "But tonight we're expecting a new student."

"We are? Why don't we get told about any of this?" Feliks smirked at me, before glancing around the room.

"We don't," he said in a low voice, "I asked Eddie to hack into the school database." I wanted to say that that was surprising or morally wrong. Really, I did, but it didn't come as a surprise at all.

"So who is this new student?"

"That's the problem!" Feliks exclaimed. "Ed was like, cut out of the system before he could find a name, so someone with techie skills is behind this." I said nothing, mulling over who it could be. Arthur didn't even trust the Internet and Francis was petrified of his own phone, so both of them were out. There was just no chance of it being Mattie, Ivan or Yao...

"I don't reckon it's anyone on my table," I said, still thinking, "and I don't think the answer to this is 42." Feliks shot me a confused-meets-exasperated look and stormed off in a dramatic, glittery and grand exit.

Mathias' POV

All I wanted was for Lukas to notice me.

You really wouldn't expect it to be that hard, considering I literally threw myself off the second (or was it third?) floor (a crazy stunt, even in my books), but I might as well have been a ghost to him. When he did notice me, it usually resulted in injury and insult added to it. It was tragic, really, like that story they made us read in English way back in eighth grade. Not Romeo and Juliet, that would be awful, but probably a Shakespearian tragedy.

Oh the irony in my own words. _I might as well have been a ghost to him._ If only that were the case! After all, he dated Matthew, who was definitely not alive. Perhaps if I were a ghost, he'd finally realise how much I like him.

"Mr Køhler?" There we go. The day went from mope-filled to terrible. I forced a grin on my face.

"What's up Dr Beilschmidt?" Gilbert's dad examined me with narrowed eyes as a fidgeted under his glare. I had no idea how Gilbert and Ludwig survived for this long, because this man was terrifying. He didn't actually say anything (I had mixed opinions on whether that was a good thing or not), but beckoned me into the Infirmary.

"You aren't yourself," he muttered once we were out of the way of prying werewolves. Busying himself with shuffling papers and various medical paraphernalia, he continued. "Something's wrong with you." Curse the old man and his uncanny ability to diagnose everything! I felt my shoulders slump in defeat. How did I explain my unrequited love tragedy without being absolutely mortified?

"Ah, well," I began, not entirely sure where I was going with my sentence, "you see, Lukas' brother-" I saw something flash in his eyes, but he said nothing, "-is starting school here today." Dr Beilschmidt paused for a moment, fingers tapping a rhythm on the desk.

"You're worried that Lukas will ignore you?" Bless his heart for not reminding me that Lukas ignored me already.

"Yeah, I guess." Honestly, this was a little bizarre, but Dr Beilschmidt was probably one of the most approachable teachers, despite coming across like Professor Snape. "I know his brother, he's sort of..." How does one describe Emil? "It isn't Emil, really; he's a bit of a hipster wannabe but he's alright. It's the fact that Lukas has a major big brother complex. He'd get along well with Natalya." I wondered how exactly they hadn't met and discussed their siblings yet, but brushed that thought away quickly. Stupid ADHD was distracting me again.

"It seems to me that you want to be in Emil's position," Gilbert's dad said, a rather alarming smirk forming on his face. Sending up a quick prayer to whatever deity was out there, I slowly nodded.

"I suppose so, but Lukas seems to forget that I'm there or get annoyed at me," I whined.

"I suppose there might be a way to get close to Lukas..." he mused. I was really starting to worry because that smile wasn't one I wanted to be on the receiving end of; it was scarier than his scowl. "You have to get close to Emil, I'd say. If you're always with Emil, he'll talk about you to his brother." That actually seemed like a plan that could work. Surprised, I was about to thank him, when Antonio was rushed in, supported by the other members of his pack.

"Lovino broke his nose!" Francis supplied cheerfully. Taking that as my cue to leave, I nodded to Dr Beilschmidt and crept out, deep in thought.

Emil's POV

Lukas' school was weird. There were strange people who were alarmingly loud; the subjects weren't useful or interesting at all and Lukas had stolen my phone and set my name as 'Lillebror' and I couldn't change it. To top it all off, the only people I knew here were friends of my brother and they all treated me like a kid.

I'm only three years younger than Lukas!

After finally shaking my brother off my tail, I began moping around the school. The uniform was stiff; the blazer was too tight around my shoulders but it was too long, and the black trousers had already gotten covered in little white hairs because the boy on the plane with me, Leon, had somehow managed to smuggle a cat on with him.

So no, today was not a good day.

I was minding my own business, thumbing through a worn out copy of The Aeneid, when I literally crashed into someone in the most cliched way possible. I almost lost my glasses, but when I looked up, I almost did a double take.

"Mathias?"

"Hey Emil!" he said with a grin, offering me a hand up. "Isn't Lukas around somewhere?" Deflating slightly, I shrugged. Of course he only wanted to talk to my brother.

"Lost him a while back," I muttered, pushing my glasses up. What surprised me though was when he grabbed my arm, still smiling.

"Has he given you a tour yet?" he asked. "If not, I'd be happy to show you around!"

"-and then he showed me around the whole school!" I exclaimed to my brother, who was sitting cross legged on my bed, listening intently. "He even taught me all of the tricks, like the secret room off the third floor corridor, and the trick step to the kitchen that sets off the alarm!" Lukas seemed vaguely perturbed, but that was the only shift in his expression that I could see.

"Mathias Køhler?" he murmured, more to himself than to me, but I nodded regardless.

"He asked a lot about you. He's just as clingy as I remember," I grumbled. Despite being glad that someone finally wanted to spend time with me, Mathias so obviously wanted to get into Lukas' pants that it wasn't funny. "You should go out with him." I finally said.

"What?" Lukas said, just after inhaling sharply. I almost snorted at how horribly cliched this was. It was so going on Tumblr.

"You heard me," I said with a roll of my eyes. "He's wanted to date you since you were both in middle school. Give him a chance, at least." I was practically holding my breath as I watched Lukas' expression morph from disbelief to clarity.

"He was being serious?" he eventually blurted out.

"Oh my god you're all stupid."

Alfred's POV

 _From: HERO__

 _To: TwinkleTwinkleI'mTheQueen_

 _Two new students dude! Emil, Lukas' little brother, and Leon, Yao's adopted brother. You owe me!_

Nodding happily, I tucked my phone away into my pocket and headed down for dinner, where I noted some confused looks towards the Nordic table.

"So Mathias finally manned up, huh?" I muttered to myself.

"Not quite," Vlad said from behind me. "Looks like Lukie asked him out. I'm not complaining, he needs to get laid." The new student, Emil, looked somewhat content (if a permanently angry scowl could be considered 'content') as he picked at the salmon on his plate while Peter talking his ear off. All in all, I considered this to be a good day. Mattie had a girlfriend, Lukas had a boyfriend, and they were on friendly terms still, which was great.

After exchanging a nod with Feliks, it seemed that Phase Two could begin.

Okay I am so sorry that this took so long. I have no reasonable excuse, although I will claim exam amnesty. Hope you enjoyed, and my apologies for not actually sticking to anything I propose to!


	11. Vash & Lilli

Synopsis: Alfred sees something weird. Weirder than usual. He sees the grumpy Swiss teenager turn into a little girl, before changing back? Investigating in secret probably isn't the best idea though, he soon realises, because Ludwig, Gil and Roderich launch a disastrous damage control operation to protect Vash's secret.

Brief warning, some sexual scenes feature in this, or at least suggestions that the frick frack occurs, even if I'm too weak to write it.

My appreciation goes out to Ellie, AKA chocolatecheesecakes for her immense support of the frazzled author.

Alfred's POV

You'd think that after four months or so, I'd have learnt how to get from Tactical to Chemistry without getting lost. That wasn't the case. I was roaming the empty corridors on the first, maybe second floor.

 _From: HERO__

 _To: CaptainKirkland_

 _I'm lost how do I get to chemistry thanks bye_

I sighed as I checked the time. I was half an hour late to an hour long lesson. It wasn't like the teacher would notice, especially considering the lack of dedicated teaching staff, but I still needed notes of some sort, whether they were copied off of a twelve year old Brit or not.

 _From: CaptianKirkland_

 _To: HERO__

 _It would help if you were on the ground floor, you prat. You've walked past my English classroom at least seven times. Chemistry is the huge lab, remember?_

I slipped my iPhone back into my blazer pocket and half skipped off to my lesson, now that I knew where it was. After a bathroom break, of course. More to play Neko Atsume than to actually go to the toilet though. As I was walking into one of the men's rooms, I halted immediately and backtracked, checking the door. Men's. If that was the case, what was a girl doing? I... Sort of recognised her. I thought that I recognised her from something, but I didn't have a clue what it was. It wasn't history class... Nor science or maths. As I peered around the corner, checking what was happening, I saw the weirdest thing _ever_. Vash. In the mirror. Not her reflection. I almost screamed.

Gilbert's POV

"Good day, Bruder?" Ludwig asked as I dumped my bag on my bed.

"It was alright, I guess. Not as awesome as spending time with you." I wandered over to the globe on my desk that Luddy had bought me for Christmas. It was an old, old one, with _Preußen_ written elegantly across Central Europe. The writing reminded me of Roderich's, in a way, the neat calligraphy that contrasted so starkly with my own chicken scratch.

"What're you thinking about?" Ludwig asked, looking up from what was probably an article he was revising for the newspaper.

"How I got banned from using ink pens," I said with a grin. As Ludwig's eyebrows shot up, I couldn't help but laugh. "I used to smudge everything, remember? Left handed. Anyway, it's hard enough to read my writing. One time, I forgot to do an essay for French or some shit and I didn't want to do it, so I just wrote down some German swear words and smudged the whole page. Apparently, some of it was still legible." My baby brother looked somewhere between amused and disappointed and shook his head.

"I'm not surprised. Was it Antonio's idea?"

"Ja, actually. How did-" I didn't finish. I didn't need to. After all, I'm so awesome that I always know the answers! As well as the fact that a screeching American had barged into our room.

"Okay Gil I'm not sure if I just didn't get enough sleep but-" Alfred clamped his mouth shut after he saw my brother and waved mutely.

"But what?" I prompted.

"Okay well you know Vash? He was like, stuck in the mirror and I-" I cut him off with a manic wave of my arm. Making eye contact with Ludwig, I nodded before dashing off. Pelting down the hallway, I hesitated outside Vash's room, before continuing on to Roderich's.

"Roddy!" I yelled as I smacked my palm against the door. "Roddy open up!"

"Ja, ja, what is it Gil?" He asked. He had ink smeared down the side of his face and his glasses were askew. He'd been composing something, I realised guiltily. He'd had a lot of trouble with composition recently; a painful combination of a lack of time and inspiration. I felt... Well, bad really for interrupting, but this was important.

"It's Alfred. He saw Lilli." Roderich paled slightly as he adjusted his glasses and straightened out his shirt.

"Is there any way to... Take it back?"

"Roddy this is Alfred. He's going to unawesomely hound me until I give him answers." I ran a hand through my hair, gripping it as I tried to find some way out of this mess.

 _From: THE_AWESOME_GIL_

 _To: GilbertsBrother_

 _LUDDY I HAVE A PLAN KEEP DISTRACTING ALFRED_

I did not have a plan, but I didn't see the need to tell Ludwig that. After all, I was awesome enough to think up a plan, right? I didn't realise that I was half pulling my hair out until Roddy gently prised my hand away.

"I have an idea," he said slowly. "It is legal. Just about."

"I'm in!"

Alfred's POV

I sat in silence. That was abnormal enough.

"So," the other blonde said with a cough, "I'm Ludwig, Gilbert's younger brother."

"I'm Alfred F. Jones!" I replied, a little weakly. Ludwig simply nodded, returning to his schoolwork. I sat, shifting awkwardly in the doorway. I was in a small, contained room with a vampire for company, who didn't seem all too friendly. Half of me hoped he was just feeling awkward like me, but the silence was stifling. I almost cried when Gilbert returned, Roderich in tow, but my relief was short lived as Gilbert gave me a sorry smile, Roderich chanted something in Latin and everything went black.

Roderich's POV

"This seems like a terrible idea," Ludwig grumbled as he trailed behind us.

"Do you have any better ideas?" Gilbert muttered, to which he was met with silence. I was walking alongside Gilbert, Alfred's body levitating between us. It was only a simple 'somnus' spell, paired with an invisibility cloaking charm, but I already felt somewhat drained. I needed to find a spot where the leylines converged to power back up soon.

"Why is your brother coming with us?" I asked quietly, to which Gilbert snorted.

"Damage control, apparently. I think he-"

"I'm getting my facts straight in case this turns into a police inquiry," Ludwig said with a sigh. That wasn't encouraging in the slightest and I was slightly insulted that he had so little faith in my power.

"Careful where you walk," I snapped to them both. My magic could only work within a sphere, and they'd started to get alarmingly close to the glowing edges. Either that, or they were closing in on us. I hoped it was the former, or I had less magic than I thought.

"Are we almost there yet?" Gilbert whined. We were, but i paused before telling him that, lips quirking up.

"We have another three miles."

"WHAT?" I tried to suppress a chuckle, but failed miserably. Understanding flashed in Gilbert's red eyes as he scowled like a child. "Not cool Roddy. Not cool."

"We only have a little way to go. Just through here," I said, pointing to a dirt path that cut through the trees. The school was built blessedly close to several sites which were deeply steeped in magic, this altar being one of them. I unceremoniously dumped Alfred down on the altar while summoning a spell book from Gilbert's hands.

"Whatcha looking for? Want some help from the awesome me?" Ludwig stood awkwardly to one side as Gilbert put one arm around my shoulder, leaning over to see what I was reading. With his eyes narrowed and an expression that clearly said _'if you lose my brother in these woods you will die'_ , he vanished practically into thin air.

"Did he go to feed?" I asked. Gilbert simply nodded, looking a little uncomfortable.

"Let's look for the right spell, ja?"

After about twenty minutes, I was confident that I had erased the right portions of his memory, and had fabricated a sugar induced coma upon his memory to explain his amnesia. With that taken care of, I cast a teleportation spell and returned him to his room.

"We could've just carried him back up there," I realised mournfully. "Now I don't have enough magic to return us to the school." I closed the spell books and stacked them on the floor, slumping to sit on the altar. Gilbert, however, seemed to have different ideas. He swept in, placing a quick kiss to my lips, before pulling away, with a devilish grin.

"Or," he said, "we could do something else."

"Are you suggesting we desecrate Hecate's last surviving altar on this island?" Gilbert paused, before shrugging.

"Yeah, that's what I was going for." I saw no need to reply, but as he turned to pick up the books for the trek back, I grabbed his wrist.

"That sounds like a plan."

Alfred's POV

I awoke to a muffled screaming sound. Everything hazy, I sat up to see Mattie frozen in his seat, mouth open in a silent 'o' of surprise.

"S'up dude?" I winced as I sat up; eating all that candy had done me no good.

"Bro," he whispered, "you did a me. You appeared out of nowhere." I stared at him in confusion. I'd been here all afternoon, hadn't I? I'd binged out on candy and chocolate, then fallen into a sugar haze and passed out.

"Nah bro, I just woke up. I ate a shit ton of chocolate and then crashed." Mattie inhaled, slowly shaking his head, before pacing my far too small room. If he weren't a ghost, he would've tripped over the mound of laundry, my chair and a pyramid of beer cans (he intentionally knocked those over). Then, he stopped without warning.

"Magic," he said with a quiet sigh. "You appeared out of nowhere, like magic. This must've been Arthur, Vlad and... And Lukas." I vaguely noticed the hesitation, but didn't comment.

"I'm so confused right now." Mathew didn't deign to reply. Instead, he grabbed me by the wrist with his icy cold ghostly hand and dragged me down the stairs.

"I was thinking about possessing you," he offered in response to my insulted glare, "but I'm a lovely brother who would never do that." I couldn't help but recall the countless times that he'd possessed me in the past, but my complaints were pushed to one side when I noticed Lukas lurking at the other end of the hallway.

"What's the matter with your brother Matthew?" he asked with a sigh and a glare at me.

"I was waiting for him and he just appeared out of nowhere," Mattie explained. "I think magic was used. Do you know anything?" Lukas mused for a while, clearly deep in thought.

"Tino or Roderich," he said after a hefty silence. At our confused expressions, he sighed as thought the entire situation deeply pained him. "It wasn't anyone in the Black Magic club," he explained, "we tell each other everything and report back. The only other people capable of this are Tino and Roderich." I knew he was holding something back, but the poor guy looked fed up. I decided to cut him some slack.

"I don't really know what's going on but thanks Lukas!" After giving us Tino and Roderich's usernames, Lukas hurried off. I'd noted that he'd received some messages while exchanging details, but he was in some rush.

 _From: HERO__

 _To: Austriano_

 _CC: MapleMapleHockeyPancakes_

 _Hey dude can we speak to you?_

I sent the same message to _Satanic_Warmaster_ (that one worried me a lot) and Mattie and I sat, awaiting a reply. We got one pretty quickly from Tino, simply stating that tonight was a bad time because he was cramming for an exam. It took a lot longer to get one from Roderich, and it wasn't even from him.

 _From: Austriano_

 _To: HERO__

 _Roddy is doing stuff._

 _\- the awesome me._

I made a sound akin to frustration in the back of my throat. I wasn't getting the answers I wanted.

"Go get some sleep Al," Mattie told me. "We'll see what happens in the morning."

Tino threatened to scream at me if I tried to distract him before his history test second period, so I tried talking to Roderich instead. He didn't seem to know whether he should he happy or his usual (irritated) but I cornered him after breakfast and finally got some answers.

"You're the only person it could've been!" I exclaimed, using my enhanced, FBI interrogation skills (learnt from Criminal Minds) to coerce him into a possible confession. It worked!

"Listen," he said, paying visibly, "we didn't have a choice, okay? You knew too much!"

"Well I remember everything," I lied, "and the gig is up."

"Honestly, we were trying to protect Vash. It was my idea, but Gilbert agreed to it too!" Whoa. Gilbert was in on this? And what was this about Vash? I realised, a moment too late, that I'd spoken aloud. Roderich went from pale to red (a colour change so fast I thought I'd get whiplash) and ran off, furiously dialling a number.

"Mattie, there are like, six people involved. It isn't to do with Tino, I don't think. Roderich, Gilbert and Vash, at least." I was really quite worried. Had I been probed?

"Then let's go have a word with Vash," Mattie said, expression darkening in a way I'd only ever seen on the hockey pitch. "He has some explaining to do."

"What the fuck do you two want?" Vash growled from behind his gun. We'd found him in the rec room, playing one of those shooting games that came with a plastic gun. He pointed it at me and fired for emphasis. Nothing happened, of course, but I flinched nonetheless.

"Why would Gilbert and Roderich be protecting you?" Matthew asked, launching straight into the interrogation.

"Fuck off," Vash replied, unpausing his game and going back to blasting up zombies. I'd never seen Mattie so angry in my life. Fuming, he pulled the plug on the machine and glared at Vash.

"Why are they protecting you?" he repeated. "Why did they erase my brother's memories to protect you?" Vash finally ceased his own evil glare (I was thankful that at least one involved party had) and stared at me, curious.

"I do have a secret," he said, "so you must've seen, or they wouldn't have done that."

"Seen what?" Mattie and I asked in sync. Vash scowled at us, but I noticed some weird sort of glow. Something in my mind told me it was familiar, but the sense of Déjà vu left quickly.

"You're a girl?" I exclaimed.

"I'm Lilli," the girl said with a soft smile. I already liked her a lot more than Vash. "I'm big brother's alter ego." Mattie and I stared at her dumbly. I did realise though, that Vash didn't seem to have any powers. Everyone at this school had demonstrated their uncanny supernatural abilities but him. Clearly, this was it.

"How...?" Mattie began, trailing off.

"It was to protect me," Lilli said with a sad smile. "My big brother saved my life." We both remained quiet, so she continued. "My big brother carried the souls of those who had died to the afterlife," she explained hesitantly. "He was a Reaper. But then _I_ was on his list. He decided that he couldn't let me die, so he absorbed my soul." She gestured to herself. "We can only talk through mirrors now, and he has forsaken himself by doing this, all for me."

"But why keep it a secret?" I asked eventually. It was a lot to absorb, but it made perfect sense at the same time. That worried me. I was becoming desensitised to weirdness.

"If too many people know," she explained, "then other reapers could find out and take us both." She turned back into Vash without much warning, just as I went to hug her. This resulted in me getting repeatedly shot with a plastic toy gun.

"Happy?" he hissed. "Now fuck off. I have a new high score to set."

We ended up moping after that. The story was rather ominous, sobering. The adventure was over and I just felt sort of bad for prying so much.

"I hope they'll be alright," Mattie whispered as we slumped down in my room.

"I'm sure it'll be fine!" I exclaimed. There was a heavy silence after that, broken only by the ticking of my alarm clock. Without warning, the door burst open.

"Mister Jones?" Ravis stuttered. "We have a small problem."


	12. Shake it Feliks!

Synopsis: Toris and Feliks seem very close. That's not even the strange part, after all, there seem to be a lot of openly gay couples in this school. The strange part is that Ivan seems hellbent on invading Lithuania and Feliks and Toris have a little bit of a problem with that. Sort of short chapter - my apologies! Also, please make sure you HAVE READ THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER! I did a double update before, so just make sure! Enjoy!

Alfred's POV

"Mister Jones? We have a small problem." It was Ravis, the traumatised brownie (who I was told I was not allowed to eat) who had burst into my room.

"Whoa dude, what's up?" I was fairly certain that the boy was a closet alcoholic (in my opinion, most of the Eastern Europeans were), but I didn't think that was the cause of his jitteriness.

"It's Mister Ivan," he said, "and he's threatened to take over Lithuania, so now Feliks is involved and I think they're having a duel!" It took quite a while to decipher his words through the stutters and quaking in fear, but I eventually got the message.

"He's what?!" Mattie chose then to make a strategic disappearance, so I was left with a quaking brownie and a lot of rage towards a certain fake boyfriend of mine. He was definitely fake though! We didn't actually like each other. We only kissed to keep the cover up. At least, I'm pretty sure that's how I felt. If he was threatening to invade countries again, I wasn't sure our strained fake relationship would last...

Arthur's POV

"It looks like Alfred's on another one of his crusades," I commented to Yao with a sigh, blowing on my tea to cool it down.

"When isn't he?" Yao grumbled, too tired to make any further comment. He wasn't wrong, but Alfred looked ready to murder someone. I wondered who...

"I heard that there's some tension!" Vlad sang from behind us. I almost spilt my tea everywhere; Yao spat out a mouthful of green tea.

"Oh?" I asked once I'd recovered, setting down my mug and handing Yao a handful of napkins. "Do tell, you evil little Necromancer." Vlad seemed somewhat flattered.

"Well, seeing as you asked so nicely," Francis and Yao looked mystified, "I guess I'll tell you. Ivan, in a passing comment, said that he would invade Lithuania. Naturally, most of us Eastern Europeans are now somewhat miffed." He readjusted his top hat, something akin to anger on his face. "So your American hero has decided to step in." I realised in that moment that Vlad was the biggest source of gossip in the school. Arguably, enough to rival even Feliks.

"Why does the Américain always do this?" Francis groaned into his hands.

"I don't know Frog," I grumbled, "but we need to handle this ourselves."

It wasn't for quite some time that we actually encountered some of the disgruntled Eastern Europeans, and they weren't talking too much. Elizabeta seemed withdrawn, as opposed to her usual bubbly attitude. She was scowling down at her physics book as if the sheer force of her glare would set it on fire. I wouldn't have been surprised if it did; anything could happen at this school.

"Eliza, tell us what's going on so we can help you," I said, slamming my rather impressive pile of textbooks down on the table. Revision for finals was suddenly beginning for Yao, Kiku and I, who had begun to study together at every opportunity. "All we know is that Ivan threatened Toris, but you need to explain why this is such an issue."

"Oui," Francis drawled all of a sudden, "it isn't like Ivan threatening ze little Lithuanian is anything new."

"You don't get it," Eliza snapped. "It's not just about that. It's because we all went to school together, and he was the biggest arsehole you'll ever meet. He used to beat us up and the teachers didn't do anything! We were all scared shitless of him, and now he's suddenly turned up at the school with Natalya in tow, what're we meant to think?" I paused, processing all of this, while a plan formed with surprising speed in my mind.

"Thanks Eliza. I'll take care of this." Both she and Francis held back shudders; obviously I'd let a little too much of my megalomaniac side out. Ah well, time for a little discussion with Lukas...

My dear Norwegian friend had been sat with his fingers bridged and his forehead resting on them for the past ten minutes. He did that a lot, I'd noted, especially while thinking very hard about things.

"It's risky," he muttered, "but I think you can pull it off. Just don't do anything too stupid, or let the American fuck it up." Lukas' grace obtained, my next (and most vital) step, unfortunately involved aforementioned American. Lukas' words in my mind, I hurried to track down the fool.

Alfred's POV

I'd tried super hard to persuade my accidental boyfriend not to invade Eastern Europe, but his mind seemed to be made up. As an unfortunate result, Feliks had swept off his 'best friend' (please, they were so not friends. Even I could see it was more than that.) and I hadn't seen a huge amount of them since. Eliza and Vlad had formed an uneasy alliance - mostly consisting of them travelling together and a lot of cussing at each other - leaving the others to their own devices.

"Come on Ivan!" I shouted, yet again. "You need to leave them alone! Why are you so obsessed with this anyway?" He offered me no answer, just one of those small, mysterious smiles and a little laugh.

"Don't be worrying about that," he replied. "You'll see when it happens, da?" Out of sheer exasperation, I hit myself in the face with my anatomy textbook. Repeatedly.

"Fine," I snapped. "I'm going to hang out with Gilbert." Doing my best to ignore the fleeting, crestfallen expression on his face (damn that pale, attractive bastard), I stomped back inside into the shadowy hallways of the main building, disrupting a brief conversation between Vash and Lilli, through his phone screen.

"Fucker," he snarled. "Arthur's looking for you. Piss off before I shoot you." It seemed that he too was on edge. I think. It might've just been him. Taking heed to his words, I trailed down the hall, past the double doors of the main hall, I finally tracked down the elusive door to the basement and shot Arthur a text.

"I have a plan," he called, sounding somewhat out of breath. I spun round, ready to him, resulting in a slight, gasping chuckle. "Okay. It involves you. Actually, it's just you. I'll be watching and rooting for you. From a safe distance."

"Why do you make it sound like I might die?" I whined. "Come on Arthur, don't off me just yet, I'm the hero!"

"Okay. It's simple enough, you just need to break up with him, or heavily threaten to do so. As publicly as you can." He finally seemed to have gotten his breath back, and I would've teased him about getting old if I wasn't so surprised.

"What?" I asked, not getting how this plan would work at all. Arthur snickered; clearly the gears turning in my head were pretty obvious. "Phone a friend, please," I muttered.

"Remember why you started dating him to begin with?" Arthur replied, looking like the cat that caught the sparrow, or whatever the expression was.

"To keep Natalya off of him," I replied, "but I still don't get why-" Oh. Oh! It suddenly made so much more sense. I was dating him as a favour, to keep Natalya off of his back. This was a way to kill two birds with one stone! I could get out of dating him, and slash or he'd leave the two other tables alone, while gaining the friendship of half of the school! Shooting Arthur a grin and a salute, I dashed off upstairs to plot. Not in a villainous way, in a totally heroic way. Naturally.

Blatantly ignoring my huge crush on Jared Leto, Margot Robbie and Diablo, I gave myself a heroic pep talk in the mirror before putting my 'angry' face on. Storming down to lunch (and promptly getting distracted by tacos) I slammed my tray down on the table.

"Ivan, if you don't stop bullying the others, I'm breaking up with you," I announced. The room quiet ended considerably, with all of the attention suddenly on us. Arthur shot Francis a triumphant look, while the Frenchman and Yao simply watched with detached amusement as Ivan frowned.

"But why?" he asked in a small voice. "I was doing it for you."

"No you aren't, you're just a psycho!" I snapped. "A Commie bastard!" Oblivious to the hurt in his eyes, my rant continued. "If you were really doing anything for me, you'd have stopped upsetting people on purpose when I asked you to!"

"Oh high school drama," Francis commented to Arthur. "I feel so old. Remember when this was us? You kept beating up Antonio-" he cut himself off, suddenly very interested in his textbook.

"I just wanted to show you that I was... worthy?" Ivan replied, a little uncertain on his English. "I wanted to prove that... You don't always have to be the hero. You can sometimes just be Alfred, da? I can be strong too." Stunned, I had no idea how to respond. Arthur would've had some witty retort; Yao would've drop kicked him in the face and Francis would have done his terrifying werewolf snarl, but frankly, I just felt sort of shitty.

"Could we take this outside?" I asked, suddenly very aware of all of the eyes on us both. Ivan graced me with another one of those stupid smiles of his, before nodding, his soft (I'm totally guessing that it's soft!) white-blonde hair falling into his eyes.

I was certain that, as a hero, I could arrange some sort of agreement with him.

I've realised that these have gone from sort of light hearted to super dramatic. My humblest apologies for that. I'll do my best to make the next chapter more cheerful!


End file.
